Across-trial spatial suppression in visual search

Wang, Lishuang; Wang, Benchi; Theeuwes, Jan · 2021 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-021-02341-x

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Summary

This study investigates the flexibility of attentional suppression in visual search, specifically examining whether humans can implicitly learn and suppress the anticipated location of a salient distractor across trials. While previous research established that observers can suppress locations with a high probability of containing distractors through statistical learning, it remained unclear if this suppression could be dynamically adjusted on a trial-by-trial basis. The authors aimed to determine if the spatial priority map can proactively suppress a moving distractor location based on learned sequential patterns, even when participants are unaware of these patterns. The researchers conducted two experiments using a visual search task where participants identified a shape singleton (a diamond among circles or vice versa) while ignoring a color singleton distractor. In Experiment 1, 48 participants were divided into baseline and learning groups. In the baseline group, the distractor appeared at random locations. In the learning group, the distractor followed a consistent clockwise or counter-clockwise sequence across trials. Experiment 2 replicated this design with another 48 participants but randomly swapped the distractor color between red and green on each trial to rule out feature-based suppression. Participants performed 1,200 test trials, and their reaction times were analyzed to measure attentional capture. Afterward, participants were queried about their awareness of any display regularities. The results demonstrated that participants in the learning groups exhibited significantly reduced attentional capture compared to the baseline groups. In Experiment 1, the attentional capture effect was 21 ms for the learning group versus 42 ms for the baseline group. This learning effect emerged rapidly, appearing after only 16 trials (two repetitions of the sequence) and stabilizing throughout the experiment. Crucially, none of the participants in the learning groups reported awareness of the distractor sequence, indicating implicit learning. Experiment 2 confirmed that this suppression was spatial rather than feature-based; despite the distractor color changing randomly, the learning group still showed reduced capture (29 ms vs. 48 ms in baseline). Additionally, analyses ruled out adjacent-location priming as an alternative explanation for the results. The findings conclude that the spatial priority map is highly flexible and operates at a subconscious level to prepare the attentional system for upcoming events. The study provides evidence that observers can proactively suppress anticipated distractor locations based on implicit statistical learning of sequential patterns, independent of specific features like color. This suggests that attentional suppression is not a static bias but a dynamic process that can be tuned trial-by-trial. The authors argue that this mechanism is likely driven by implicit statistical learning rather than active top-down control, as participants lacked explicit knowledge of the regularities. These results expand the understanding of how the visual system efficiently filters irrelevant information by predicting and suppressing potential distractions before they occur.

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• visual search