The dynamics of statistical learning in visual search and its interaction with salience processing: An EEG study

Dolci, Carola; Rashal, Einat; Santandrea, Elisa; Hamed, Suliann Ben; Chelazzi, Leonardo; Macaluso, Emiliano; Boehler, C. Nico · 2024 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120514

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

Get this paper ↗ (DOI — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)

Summary

This study investigates the neural dynamics of statistical learning (SL) in visual search and its interaction with bottom-up salience processing. While SL allows individuals to implicitly learn environmental regularities to guide attention, and salience automatically captures attention based on physical properties, it remains unclear whether these mechanisms operate additively or interactively within the spatial priority map. The authors aimed to disentangle these effects by examining how SL and salience jointly influence target selection and post-selection processing, specifically testing if one mechanism gates or overrides the other. The researchers employed an EEG study with 24 participants performing a visual search task. Participants identified the orientation of a gap in a target bar among distractors. The experimental design manipulated two factors: target frequency (high vs. low probability locations) and display type (homogeneous vs. salient target, where the target popped out in color). Crucially, the high-frequency target location switched hemifields halfway through the experiment to test the flexibility of SL and allow for proper lateralized ERP analysis. EEG activity was analyzed focusing on two event-related potential (ERP) components: the N2pc (200–300 ms), indexing attentional selection, and the SPCN (350–650 ms), indexing post-selection maintenance in visual short-term memory. These components were further divided into early and late time windows to assess temporal dynamics. Behavioral results revealed that both SL and salience significantly improved performance, but they interacted rather than acting independently. Specifically, the benefit of salience was attenuated at high-frequency locations, and the SL benefit was smaller for salient targets. Neurophysiologically, salience processing primarily enhanced early-stage target selection, evidenced by a larger early N2pc and early SPCN. In contrast, SL modulated neural activity later in the processing stream, characterized by a larger late SPCN. Additionally, the study demonstrated that SL is highly flexible; participants rapidly acquired the new spatial bias after the hemifield switch, with no significant decline in SL effects across experimental blocks. These findings suggest that SL and salience processing jointly contribute to establishing attentional priority but operate at different temporal stages. Salience drives initial attentional capture, while SL influences subsequent maintenance and discrimination of visual information. The rapid adjustment to changed regularities highlights the flexibility of SL. This work clarifies the integration of experience-dependent and experience-independent attentional mechanisms, showing they are not merely additive but interact dynamically to optimize visual search efficiency.

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed.

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-25; verification: verified.

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• visual search