Allocating Attention to Distractor Locations is Based on Top-Down Expectations

Lahav, Aya; Tsal, Yehoshua

doi:10.1080/17470218.2013.768276

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 11 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…It is interesting to note that the present results are very different from those reported by Tsal and Makovski (2006;Humphreys et al, 2004;Lahav et al, 2012;Lahav & Tsal, 2013;Makovski, 2019). Tsal and Makovski (2006) had participants perform a classical flanker task (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974), in which they were asked to report a centrally presented target while ignoring two diagonally arranged flanking distractors.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Overall, a large number of studies suggest that distractor suppression can only occur in a reactive manner (e.g., Beck et al, 2018;Humphreys et al, 2004;Lahav et al, 2012;Lahav & Tsal, 2013;Makovski, 2019;Moher & Egeth, 2012;Tsal & Makovski, 2006;Won et al, 2019). For instance, Moher and Egeth (2012) showed that if observers were instructed to ignore a particular distractor feature, target search was slower than in a neutral condition in which no prior feature information regarding the distractor was provided.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search

et al. 2021

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Irrelevant salient objects may capture our attention and interfere with visual search. Recently, it was shown that distraction by a salient object is reduced when it is presented more frequently at one location than at other locations. The present study investigates whether this reduced distractor interference is the result of proactive spatial suppression, implemented prior to display onset, or reactive suppression, occurring after attention has been directed to that location. Participants were asked to search for a shape singleton in the presence of an irrelevant salient color singleton which was presented more often at one location (the high-probability location) than at all other locations (the low-probability locations). On some trials, instead of the search task, participants performed a probe task, in which they had to detect the offset of a probe dot. The results of the search task replicated previous findings showing reduced distractor interference in trials in which the salient distractor was presented at the high-probability location as compared with the low-probability locations. The probe task showed that reaction times were longer for probes presented at the high-probability location than at the low-probability locations. These results indicate that through statistical learning the location that is likely to contain a distractor is suppressed proactively (i.e., prior to display onset). It suggests that statistical learning modulates the first feed-forward sweep of information processing by deprioritizing locations that are likely to contain a distractor in the spatial priority map.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search

et al. 2021

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“…Based on Stelmach and Herdman (1991), who showed that an attended stimulus was perceived to occur before an unattended stimulus, it was found that more attention was allocated to the location of the to-be-presented distractor than to an empty location. This surprising finding was later replicated (Lahav, Makovski, & Tsal, 2012; Lahav & Tsal, 2013) and generalized to feature-based attention as well. For instance, it was found that visual search was slowed down, rather than expedited, given a cue to ignore a distractor’s color (Moher & Egeth, 2012).…”

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confidence: 73%

Preparing for distraction: Attention is enhanced prior to the presentation of distractors.

Makovski¹

2019

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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How do people prepare for the presentation of distractors, if at all? Previous studies have shown that sometimes, paradoxically, observers actively allocate attention to expected distractors. However, this was mainly found in selective-attention tasks in which to-be-attended targets were also expected. The present experiments are designed to probe attention when the only stimuli expected to appear in the display are distractors. Specifically, participants performed a change-detection task while interfering stimuli appeared at a fixed moment during the retention interval. Additionally, they were asked to respond to a dot-probe that appeared unexpectedly in a small proportion of the trials. Experiment 1 found that participants were faster to detect the probe when it appeared in distractor blocks than in no-distractor blocks, both when the probe appeared at the exact moment of the expected distractor and earlier. Experiment 2 showed a similar effect when the expected stimuli were informative, rather than distracting, confirming that people actively allocate attention to all upcoming stimuli. Experiments 3 to 5 replicated and extended the preparation effect by showing that it was not spatially specific. Experiments 6 and 7 ruled out alternative explanations concerning temporal uncertainty and general arousal. Together, these findings strongly suggest that observers not only do not inhibit distractors prior to their presentation but, in fact, allocate more attentional resources when expecting distractors. This enhancement is not temporally or spatially specific, suggesting that the attentional system is more alerted when a stimulus is about to appear, even when it is clear that this stimulus is distracting.

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“…The filtering setting can be held active to suppress the distractor processing only for a limited duration. A possible explanation for the limited activation of the spatial filtering settings lies in findings from previous studies, which suggested that attentional resources are allocated to expected distractor locations before they can be ignored, constituting a major factor in the failure to filter irrelevant information (i.e., the attentional white bear phenomenon; Benoni, ; Humphreys, Stalmann, & Oliviers, ; Lahav, Makovski, & Tsal, ; Lahav & Tsal, ; Tsal & Makovski, ). Another option is that the filtering setting may simply deteriorate with time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filtering performance in visual working memory is improved by reducing early spatial attention to the distractors

Allon

Luria

2019

Psychophysiology

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We investigated the underlying processes that enable improving filtering irrelevant items from entering visual working memory (WM). To this end, participants performed a bilateral change‐detection task in which either targets or targets along with distractors (i.e., the filtering condition) appeared in the memory array while ERPs were recorded. In the cue‐present condition, we provided a spatial cue coupled with a temporal cue regarding where and when the distractors would appear. On some of the filtering trials, after the offset of the memory array, task‐irrelevant probes were briefly flashed either at the locations of the targets or at the locations of the distractors. This enabled measuring whether reactivating the filtering settings resulted in reducing spatial attentional resources to the distractors, allocating additional spatial attentional resources to the targets, or both, as was measured by the P1/N1 amplitude. Results revealed that, relative to the cue‐absent condition, in the cue‐present condition the P1/N1 amplitude was reduced for probes at the distractors and was similar for probes at the targets. In addition, the reduction in the P1/N1 amplitude was accompanied by a reduced filtering cost in accuracy performance in the cue‐present condition relative to the cue‐absent condition. These findings suggest that reactivating the distractor filtering settings improved filtering performance in visual WM by reducing the allocation of spatial attention to the distractors already at early processing stages, and not by allocating additional spatial attentional resources to the targets.

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Allocating Attention to Distractor Locations is Based on Top-Down Expectations

Cited by 9 publications

References 11 publications

Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search

Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search

Preparing for distraction: Attention is enhanced prior to the presentation of distractors.

Filtering performance in visual working memory is improved by reducing early spatial attention to the distractors

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