Inhibition as a potential resolution to the attentional capture debate

Gaspelin, Nicholas; Luck, Steven J. · 2018 · Current Opinion in Psychology

DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.10.013

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Summary

This review paper addresses the long-standing theoretical debate regarding attentional capture, specifically whether physically salient stimuli automatically attract attention (bottom-up theories) or whether attention is allocated solely based on top-down goals and experience (top-down theories). The authors, Gaspelin and Luck, propose that this stalemate can be resolved by positing a new suppressive process: salient items generate an automatic priority signal, but this signal can be actively suppressed prior to the shift of visual attention, preventing capture. The paper synthesizes converging evidence from psychophysics, eye tracking, single-unit recordings, and event-related potentials (ERPs) to support the "signal suppression hypothesis." The review details specific methodological advancements that enabled the detection of this suppression. In psychophysical studies, a probe method was adapted where participants searched for a target while ignoring a uniquely colored singleton distractor; subsequent probe trials revealed that participants were less likely to report letters at the singleton location, indicating impaired processing due to inhibition. Eye-tracking studies demonstrated an "oculomotor suppression effect," where gaze was less likely to be directed toward salient distractors compared to non-salient items, even in the fastest saccades. Electrophysiological evidence focuses on the distractor positivity (PD) component of the ERP waveform. A key finding is that the amplitude of the PD component correlates with the magnitude of behavioral suppression, linking neural activity to functional inhibition. Furthermore, single-unit recordings in macaque monkeys showed that neurons representing salient distractors had firing rates below baseline when the animals successfully ignored the distractors, with a corresponding PD-like signal observed in extrastriate cortex. The paper argues that this inhibition is primarily proactive rather than reactive. Evidence shows that suppression occurs even when probes are presented simultaneously with the search display, leaving insufficient time for attention to shift to the distractor and then back to the target. Additionally, the absence of the N2pc component (an index of attentional allocation) prior to the PD component suggests that attention does not initially shift to the salient item. The authors conclude that this proactive suppression is not a voluntary act but a learned process driven by recent experience. When the to-be-ignored feature is constant across trials, suppression builds up automatically; however, if the feature varies trial-by-trial and is cued, initial capture occurs before reactive inhibition. This suggests that the ability to inhibit salient distractors is an implicit learning mechanism dependent on selection history, providing a bridge between bottom-up salience signals and top-down control in visual search.

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Topics

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• attention selective divided
• inattentional change blindness