Statistical learning in visual search reflects distractor rarity, not only attentional suppression.

ABSTRACT: In visual search tasks, salient distractors may capture attention involuntarily, but interference can be reduced when the salient distractor appears more frequently on one out of several possible positions. The reduction was attributed to attentional suppression of the high-probability position. However, all previous studies on this topic compared performance on the high-probability position to the remaining positions, which had a low probability of containing the distractor. Therefore, it is not clear whether the difference resulted from reduced interference on the high-probability position or from increased interference on the low-probability positions. To decide between these alternatives, we compared high-probability and low-probability with equal-probability positions. Consistent with

SUBMITTER: Kerzel D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9568448 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature