Rapidly learned suppression of salient distractors via multiple regularities

To stay focused, we must learn to direct attention to relevant information and ignore salient distractions. Many theories of attention suggest that the ability to ignore salient stimuli is driven by learning processes that require extensive exposure to distracting stimuli. The present study critically questions this assumption. Participants searched for a target and attempted to ignore a salient distractor. Importantly, a regularity in the salient distractor was held constant for short runs of five trials before changing. For example, the salient distractor could appear in a persistent color or location for five trials before changing. Shifts of gaze were used to determine if salient distractors captured attention or were instead suppressed. Across three experiments, we observed capture on the initial trial when the regularity changed, followed by immediate suppression on subsequent trials. Moreover, we demonstrate that this rapidly learned suppression occurs for multiple distractor regularities (featural, spatial, and combined). A fourth experiment showed that inserting an interruption trial produced capture, but suppression reemerged when the original regularity returned. Altogether, the results challenge theories proposing that salient stimuli cannot be ignored or that distractor suppression only results from slow statistical learning. Instead, the results support the view that the learned attentional control is highly adaptive, at least under certain conditions, in a manner that is broadly consistent with the Signal Suppression 2.0 account. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).