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Probability cueing of singleton-distractor locations in visual search: priority-map‐ or dimension-based inhibition?

Bei Zhang, Fredrik Allenmark, Heinrich R. Liesefeld, Zhuanghua Shi, Hermann J. Müller
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/454140
Bei Zhang
1General and Experimental Psychology, Department of Psychology, LMU Munich, Germany
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Fredrik Allenmark
1General and Experimental Psychology, Department of Psychology, LMU Munich, Germany
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Heinrich R. Liesefeld
1General and Experimental Psychology, Department of Psychology, LMU Munich, Germany
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Zhuanghua Shi
1General and Experimental Psychology, Department of Psychology, LMU Munich, Germany
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Hermann J. Müller
1General and Experimental Psychology, Department of Psychology, LMU Munich, Germany
2Department of Psychological Science, Birkbeck College (University of London), London, UK
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ABSTRACT

Observers can learn the likely locations of salient distractors in visual search, reducing their potential to capture attention (Ferrante et al., 2018; Sauter et al., 2018a; Wang & Theeuwes, 2018a). While there is agreement that this involves positional suppression of the likely distractor location(s), it is contentious at which stage of search guidance the suppression operates: the supra-dimensional priority map or feature-contrast signals within the distractor dimension. On the latter account, advocated by Sauter et al., target processing should be unaffected by distractor suppression when the target is defined in a different (non-suppressed) dimension to the target. At odds with this, Wang and Theeuwes found strong suppression not only of the (color) distractor, but also of the (shape) target when it appeared at the likely distractor location. Adopting their paradigm, the present study ruled out that increased cross-trial inhibition of the single frequent (frequently inhibited) as compared to any of the rare (rarely inhibited) distractor locations is responsible for this target-location effect. However, a reduced likelihood of the target appearing at the frequent vs. a rare distractor location contributes to this effect: removing this negative bias abolished the cost to target processing with increasing practice, indicative of a transition from priority-map‐ to dimension-based – and thus a flexible locus of – distractor suppression.

Public Significance Statement Distraction by a salient visual stimulus outside the ‘focus’ of the task at hand occurs frequently. The present study examined whether and how ‘knowledge’ of the likely location(s) where the distractors occur helps the observer to mitigate distraction. The results confirmed that observers can learn to suppress distracting stimuli at likely locations. Further, they showed that, the suppression may occur at different levels in the hierarchically organized visual system where the priorities of which objects to be attended in the environment are determined.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted October 26, 2018.
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Probability cueing of singleton-distractor locations in visual search: priority-map‐ or dimension-based inhibition?
Bei Zhang, Fredrik Allenmark, Heinrich R. Liesefeld, Zhuanghua Shi, Hermann J. Müller
bioRxiv 454140; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/454140
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Probability cueing of singleton-distractor locations in visual search: priority-map‐ or dimension-based inhibition?
Bei Zhang, Fredrik Allenmark, Heinrich R. Liesefeld, Zhuanghua Shi, Hermann J. Müller
bioRxiv 454140; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/454140

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