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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Nov 8, 2025

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control

Published on: July 5, 2015

Top-down control of attention under varying task loads.

Suhyeon Jo¹, Joo Yeon Kim², Suk Won Han¹

¹Department of Psychology, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.

Acta Psychologica

|April 23, 2021

Summary

Top-down attentional control, through increased perceptual load or stimulus dilution, helps reduce interference from distracting information during goal-directed tasks. This bias toward the target stimulus improves task performance.

Keywords:

Dilution Perceptual load Top-down bias Visual search

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Attention Studies

Background:

Goal-directed task performance is frequently disrupted by irrelevant distractors.
The Eriksen flanker paradigm demonstrates significant distractor interference.
Increased perceptual load or stimulus dilution can attenuate this interference.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if top-down attentional control, via distractor suppression or target enhancement, modulates distractor interference.
To compare attentional mechanisms under low load, high load, and dilution conditions.

Main Methods:

Participants performed a target identification task with distractors under varying perceptual load and dilution conditions.
A probe stimulus assessed attentional focus at target, non-target, or distractor locations post-task.

Main Results:

Under low load, attention was captured bottom-up early in processing.
High load and dilution conditions promoted top-down attentional focus on the target.

Conclusions:

Increasing perceptual load or using diluters encourages a top-down bias toward the target.
This top-down bias is crucial for mitigating distractor interference in attention.