Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate

Abstract

For over 25 years, researchers have debated whether physically salient stimuli capture attention in an automatic manner, independent of the observer's goals, or whether the capture of attention depends on the match between a stimulus and the observer's task set. Recent evidence suggests an intermediate position in which salient stimuli automatically produce a priority signal, but the capture of attention can be prevented via an inhibitory mechanism that suppresses the salient stimulus. Here, proponents from multiple sides of the debate describe how their original views have changed in light of recent research, as well as remaining areas of disagreement. These perspectives highlight some emerging areas of consensus and provide new directions for future research on attentional capture.

Meaning Maps Capture the Density of Local Semantic Features in Scenes: A reply to Pedziwiatr, Kümmerer, Wallis, Bethge & Teufel (2021)

“…This evidence has been observed in traditional attention paradigms (Malcolm et al, 2016;Shomstein et al, 2019), simplified object displays (Nuthmann et al, 2019), and in scene perception research (Võ et al, 2019;Williams & Castelhano, 2019;Wu et al, 2014). At this point there is little remaining doubt that the influence of physical saliency on visual-spatial attention can be overridden by many factors, and what remains to be determined is how this overriding is accomplished (Luck et al, 2020).…”

The Malleability of Attentional Capture

“…It may be worth asking if this kind of learning is the same kind of learning in the featuresearch mode, in which participants could learn to suppress the salient distractor in a matter of a few trials. If distractor suppression in feature-search mode is primarily due to implicit learning of predictable features (as suggested in Luck et al (2020)), one may wonder whether the practice effect with unpredictable features is simply a slower implicit learning process, or whether it stems from goal-driven control (the dotted lines around "control state" in Figure 2 of Luck et al (2020)). Recent evidence indicates that participants are aware when they are captured by the color singleton (e.g., Adams & Gaspelin, 2021).…”

Understanding of attentional suppression is incomplete without consideration of motivation and context

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Luck, Gaspelin, Folk, Remington, and Theeuwes (2021) provide a valuable status report on our collective understanding of attentional capture, and they succeed at identifying common ground and articulating persisting points of discord. Here, I contribute two points.

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“…First, while there is limited evidence individuals can explicitly and proactively suppress salient distractors, investigations into this question have not always considered participants' motivation and strategy use. Second, in evaluating how attentional suppression is guided by past experience, or selection history, one must consider the significant role of associative learning, which is revealed via context-dependent phenomena.The authors of the target article (Luck, Gaspelin, Folk, Remington & Theeuwes, 2021) are to be commended for their attempts at both synthesizing a vast and nuanced literature and at bridging vast and nuanced theoretical divides. In a discipline of study that is often best known for its disagreements, it is refreshing to acknowledge and articulate what common ground exists.…”

“…The authors of the target article (Luck, Gaspelin, Folk, Remington & Theeuwes, 2021) are to be commended for their attempts at both synthesizing a vast and nuanced literature and at bridging vast and nuanced theoretical divides. In a discipline of study that is often best known for its disagreements, it is refreshing to acknowledge and articulate what common ground exists.…”