Distractor ignoring: strategies, learning, and passive filtering

Our sensory environments contain more information than we can processes and successful behaviors require the ability to separate task-relevant information from task-irrelevant information. While much research on attention has focused on the mechanisms that result in selection of desired information, much less is known about how distracting information is ignored. Here we describe evidence that strategic, learned, and passive information can all contribute to better distractor ignoring. The evidence suggests that there are multiple ways in which distractor ignoring is supported that may be different than those of target selection. Future work will need to identify the mechanisms by which each source of information adjusts attentional priority such that irrelevant information is better ignored.