TY - JOUR
T1 - More capture, more suppression: Distractor suppression due to statistical regularities is determined by the magnitude of attentional capture
AU - Failing, Michel
AU - Theeuwes, Jan
PY - 2020/2/1
Y1 - 2020/2/1
N2 - Salient yet irrelevant objects often interfere with daily tasks by capturing attention against our best interests and intentions. Recent research has shown that through implicit learning, distraction by a salient object can be reduced by suppressing the location where this distractor is likely to appear. Here, we investigated whether suppression of such high-probability distractor locations is an all-or-none phenomenon or specifically tuned to the degree of interference caused by the distractor. In two experiments, we varied the salience of two task-irrelevant singleton distractors each of which was more likely to appear in one specific location in the visual field. We show that the magnitude of interference by a distractor determines the magnitude of suppression for its high-probability location: The more salient a distractor, the more it becomes suppressed when appearing in its high-probability location. We conclude that distractor suppression emerges as a consequence of the spatial regularities regarding the location of a distractor as well as its potency to interfere with attentional selection.
AB - Salient yet irrelevant objects often interfere with daily tasks by capturing attention against our best interests and intentions. Recent research has shown that through implicit learning, distraction by a salient object can be reduced by suppressing the location where this distractor is likely to appear. Here, we investigated whether suppression of such high-probability distractor locations is an all-or-none phenomenon or specifically tuned to the degree of interference caused by the distractor. In two experiments, we varied the salience of two task-irrelevant singleton distractors each of which was more likely to appear in one specific location in the visual field. We show that the magnitude of interference by a distractor determines the magnitude of suppression for its high-probability location: The more salient a distractor, the more it becomes suppressed when appearing in its high-probability location. We conclude that distractor suppression emerges as a consequence of the spatial regularities regarding the location of a distractor as well as its potency to interfere with attentional selection.
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U2 - 10.3758/s13423-019-01672-z
DO - 10.3758/s13423-019-01672-z
M3 - Article
C2 - 31848910
AN - SCOPUS:85076927527
VL - 27
SP - 86
EP - 95
JO - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
JF - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
SN - 1069-9384
IS - 1
ER -