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Attentional suppression is in place before display onset
Changrun Huang1,2, Mieke Donk3,4, Jan Theeuwes3,4,5
1Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 7-9, 1081 BT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. changrunhuang@gmail.com.
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|April 6, 2023
Summary
Statistical learning helps observers suppress distractor locations proactively. This learned suppression occurs before the visual search display is expected, influencing attentional priority maps early.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Neuroscience
- Visual attention
Background:
- Observers can learn to suppress locations prone to distractors.
- Statistical learning influences attentional allocation in visual search.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the temporal implementation of statistically learned spatial suppression.
- To determine if suppression is proactive or reactive to display onset.
Main Methods:
- Visual search task with a high-probability distractor location (HPL).
- Probe detection task with varied stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) to probe attention.
- Manipulation of SOAs to assess attentional distribution before, at, and after expected display onset.
Main Results:
- Statistically learned suppression was observed at the HPL, improving search performance.
- Probe detection was consistently slower at the HPL across all SOAs.
- This indicates proactive spatial suppression, independent of display onset timing.
Conclusions:
- Statistical learning proactively implements spatial suppression before display onset.
- Learned suppression affects attentional priority maps early in processing.
- This suggests an anticipatory mechanism in visual attention guided by statistical regularities.
