Top-down suppression of negative features applies flexibly contingent on visual search goals

Forstinger, Marlene; Ansorge, Ulrich · 2024 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-024-02882-x

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Summary

This study investigates whether top-down suppression of visual features is flexible and contingent on immediate search goals, or if it operates as a rigid, generalized mechanism. While working memory representations typically facilitate the processing of target-defining features, it remains unclear if they can also proactively and selectively suppress distractor features when task demands change unpredictably from trial to trial. Previous research often used block-wise designs or non-obligatory distractor features, leaving open the question of whether suppression can be flexibly applied to task-relevant negative features (e.g., "not red") in real-time. To address this, the authors conducted three experiments using a visual search paradigm where participants identified a target defined by either negative features (e.g., a horizontal bar that was not red or not blue) or positive features (e.g., a blue bar). Search tasks alternated or repeated randomly, requiring flexible working memory control. Peripheral singleton cues were presented before the target display to measure attentional capture or suppression. The key metric was the validity effect: standard validity (faster responses when cue and target locations match) indicates attentional capture, while inverse validity (slower responses on valid trials) indicates suppression of the cued feature. Experiment 1 specifically tested selective suppression by having participants switch between suppressing red or blue cues. The results demonstrated that negative features elicited inverse validity effects, confirming that they were suppressed rather than captured. Crucially, this suppression was flexible and contingent on current instructions. In Experiment 1, suppression tended to be selective when participants switched between different negative features (e.g., suppressing red only when searching for "not red" targets). However, when switching between positive and negative search criteria, suppression generalized to non-matching colors. Experiment 3 revealed that when the same color (red) served as both a positive target feature in one task and a negative distractor feature in another, red cues captured attention or were suppressed depending entirely on the current trial’s functional meaning. These findings indicate that working memory representations flexibly trigger either attentional capture or suppression based on a feature’s current functional role in visual search. The study concludes that top-down control is not static; rather, the specificity of suppression varies with task demands. This challenges the view that suppression is a broad, non-specific gating mechanism and supports the idea that visual attention is guided by dynamic, goal-dependent representations that can rapidly switch between enhancing and inhibiting specific features.

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• visual search