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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Visual Perception

Background:

  • Attentional capture by salient distractors can impair visual search.
  • Previous research suggested suppression of distractors was limited to predictable features (first-order suppression).
  • The possibility of second-order suppression for unpredictable distractors remained unclear due to conflicting evidence.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the conditions under which second-order suppression of salient distractors in visual search is effective.
  • To re-evaluate previous findings on suppression limitations by manipulating feature variability.
  • To demonstrate that second-order suppression can be applied to unpredictable distractors.

Main Methods:

  • A multiframe letter-probe paradigm was used to measure performance in visual search tasks.
  • Experiments manipulated the predictability and variability of distractor and target features (color).
  • Observer performance was assessed by the frequency of reporting probe letters at distractor locations.

Main Results:

  • A singleton suppression effect was observed when target and distractor colors were constant (Experiment 1).
  • No suppression effect was found when target and distractor colors were swapped randomly (Experiment 2).
  • A robust suppression effect reappeared when target and distractor colors had high variability (eight random colors) (Experiment 3).

Conclusions:

  • First-order suppression is not universally applicable.
  • Second-order suppression of salient distractors is possible under conditions of high feature variability.
  • Suppression effects are independent of direct target-distractor competition.