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Can salient stimuli really be suppressed?

Seah Chang1, Howard E Egeth2

  • 1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA. seahchang@jhu.edu.

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|November 26, 2020
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Observers can actively suppress irrelevant visual stimuli, even when highly noticeable. This study demonstrates a powerful suppression mechanism that effectively overrides attentional capture by salient distractors.

Keywords:
AttentionAttentional captureVisual search

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Visual Attention

Background:

  • A salient stimulus often automatically captures attention, even if irrelevant to the task.
  • The signal-suppression hypothesis suggests active distractor suppression is possible.
  • The efficacy of suppression alone in overriding attentional capture by salient distractors remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if active suppression can override attentional capture by a salient, irrelevant stimulus.
  • To determine if suppression alone, without target enhancement, is sufficient.

Main Methods:

  • Participants performed visual search tasks with and without irrelevant color singletons.
  • Learned suppression effects were assessed using interleaved probe trials.
  • Probe trials involved searching for a letter among colored and gray ovals, with colors related to search trial distractors or targets.

Main Results:

  • Responses were faster for probes on neutral or target-colored items compared to gray items.
  • Responses were slower for probes on distractor-colored items compared to gray items.
  • This indicates that the color of the distractor was actively suppressed.

Conclusions:

  • The findings support the signal-suppression hypothesis.
  • A powerful active suppression mechanism can override attentional capture by salient distractors.
  • This demonstrates the mind's ability to control attention even when faced with compelling stimuli.