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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Visual Perception

Background:

  • Statistical learning (SL) enables rapid adaptation to environmental regularities.
  • Previous research suggests SL in visual search suppresses frequently occupied distractor locations.
  • The role of explicit knowledge and awareness in SL remains debated.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether explicit knowledge of display regularities influences statistical learning in visual search.
  • To determine if conscious awareness of a distractor's high-probability location affects its suppression.

Main Methods:

  • Participants performed an additional singleton paradigm in visual search.
  • A salient distractor appeared more frequently in one location.
  • Participants reported either the distractor or target location to assess awareness.

Main Results:

  • Awareness of the distractor's high-probability location was confirmed in one group, while the other group remained unaware.
  • No significant difference in the suppression of the high-probability location was observed between aware and unaware groups.
  • The degree of suppression was consistent regardless of explicit knowledge of the regularity.

Conclusions:

  • Explicit knowledge and awareness do not contribute to learning to suppress a location in visual search.
  • Statistical learning appears to operate automatically, without requiring conscious effort or awareness.
  • These findings support the view that SL is an implicit cognitive process.