Selective attention and the suppression of cognitive noise.

Abstract

The distractor-suppression effect is the relative slowing of Stroop (1935) color naming when the current appropriate response is identical to the inappropriate response activated by the distractor word appearing in the immediately preceding trial. Two experiments investigated aspects of the time course of distractor suppression. Experiment 1 found the suppression effect when subjects were instructed to maintain strict accuracy but not when subjects were encouraged to sacrifice some accuracy for greater speed. Experiment 2 traced the recovery from suppression by varying the interval between successive trials (20, 520,1020, or 2020 ms). The suppression effect was found to persist for at least a second; by 2 s the effect was completely dissipated. The results support the view of selective inhibition as an active, time-dependent control process that develops over time following the activation of distracting information and that is released after response to the task-appropriate information has been made. The results are interpreted in the context of a model in which widespread automatic activation in memory is followed by a process of "narrowing down" the range of activated representations to those specifically appropriate to current task demands (Keele & Neill, 1978).

Developmental change in the cross-modal Stroop effect

“…Identifying blue as the print color on Trial 2 would take longer than it would if it had not been the ignored stimulus in the previous trial. It has been argued (e.g., Driver & Baylis, 1993;Neill, 1977;Neill & Westberry, 1987;Tipper et al, 1989) that the magnitude of the negative priming effect is a direct reflection of the efficiency of suppression mechanisms and is negatively correlated with susceptibility to distraction. Tipper et al proposed that the developmental differences seen in studies of selective attention (e.g., Doyle, 1973;Gerstadt et al, 1994;Jerger et al, 1988;Zuckier & Hagan, 1978) are due to children's underutilization of the suppression mechanism.…”

Interference and negative priming from ignored distractors: The role of selection difficulty

“…Second, if subjects are encouraged to respond rapidly to target objects, the nature of priming from ignored items tends to be positive (i.e., facilitatory). However, when accuracy is emphasized and responding is slower, ignored objects are more likely to produce negative priming (Neill & Westberry, 1987;Neumann & DeSchepper, 1992). Thus, the implementation of inhibition takes time.…”

Attentional distribution in the visual field duringsame-different judgments as assessed by response competition

“…There is a growing body of experimental evidence showing the role of inhibition in stimulus processing and stimulus selection (see, e.g., Allport, Tipper, & Chmiel, 1985;Dalrymple-Alford & Budayr, 1966;Lowe, 1979Lowe, , 1985Neill, 1977;Neill & Westberry, 1987;Tipper, 1985;Tipper, MacQueen, & Brehaut, 1988). Neill (1991) has presented an excellent summary of the research in this area and traced out some of its theoretical implications.…”