Memory precision for salient distractors decreases with learned suppression

Abstract

Attention operates as a cognitive gate that selects sensory information for entry intomemory and awareness (Driver, 2001). Under many circumstances, the selected information is task-relevant and important to remember, but it is also well known that perceptually salient non- target objects will capture attention and induce awareness even when they are irrelevant (Adams and Gaspelin, 2020). Recent studies have shown that task interference by salient distractors diminishes after repeated exposures, but the relationship between suppression and memory remain unclear. If attentional suppression (indicated by a reduced capture costs) occurs at the sensory level and prevents readout to other cognitive processes, one might expect memory and awareness to dimmish commensurate with improved suppression. Here we test this hypothesis by measuring memory precision, awareness, and confidence of salient non-targets over repetitions as capture costs are reduced. Our results show that better attentional suppression is accompanied by reductions in memory precision and awareness, suggesting that reductions in capture costs reflect a reduction in the likelihood of the distractor entering memory and awareness.

Acute stress impairs target enhancement but not distractor suppression in attention selection: Evidence from the N2pc and Pd

“…In the ERP study, target enhancement is related to the N2pc component, which is a 4 hemisphere-lateralized modulation that indexes the rapid reallocation of attention towards task-relevant information in visual search, when the target attracts more attention, the amplitude of the N2pc would be larger (Eimer, 1996;Hickey et al, 2009;Luck & Hillyard, 1994). The other is distractor suppression, which refers to how irrelevant or potentially distracting visual objects can be suppressed below baseline to reduce distraction (Gaspelin et al, 2015) and requires the involvement of visual cortex regions or/and frontal-parietal network (Adam & Serences, 2021;Geng, 2014;Serences et al, 2004;Won et al, 2022). For example, Serence et al(2004) found that neural activity in the visual cortex regions increased prior to stimulus onset when the probability of distractors was higher, suggesting that visual cortex is involved in distractor suppression.…”