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Statistical regularities cause attentional suppression with target-matching distractors.
Dirk Kerzel1, Stanislas Huynh Cong2
1Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education, Université de Genève, 40 Boulevard du Pont d'Arve, 1205, Genève, Switzerland. dirk.kerzel@unige.ch.
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|November 30, 2020
Summary
Attention can suppress irrelevant stimuli during visual search, even when distractors share target features. This study shows feature-based attention guides this suppression, reducing interference from frequent distractor locations.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Visual search is often hindered by salient, irrelevant stimuli.
- Attentional suppression may reduce the impact of these distractors.
- Evidence for suppression of distractors sharing target features is limited.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate attentional suppression of distractors with shared features.
- To determine if feature-based attention can guide attentional suppression.
- To explore the mechanisms of attentional suppression in visual search.
Main Methods:
- A cue-target paradigm with temporally separated stimuli was used.
- A cue appeared briefly before the target display.
- Cue frequency varied across locations to induce attentional suppression.
Main Results:
- Invalid cues at high-frequency positions caused less interference than at low-frequency positions.
- Target processing was impaired at the high-frequency cue position.
- This indicates attentional suppression of the cued location.
Conclusions:
- Attentional suppression can be established for frequent distractor locations, even with shared features.
- Feature-based attention appears to guide attentional suppression.
- This suggests feature-based attention plays a dual role in both enhancement and suppression.
