Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
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J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform · May 2018
Optimal task-sets override attentional capture by rare cues.
Many studies converge on the conclusion that spatially irrelevant precues do not capture attention when cue and target features do not match. However, a recent study reported that rare onset cues captured attention even though observers searched for a nonmatching color target. Hence, attentional capture by rare onsets cues might be cognitively impenetrable (Folk & Remington, 2015). ⋯ Moreover, we examined the previous suggestion that frequency effects are limited to onset cues by presenting rare color cues with nonmatching color targets (Experiment 3). We observed capture by rare color cues, but again, capture could be prevented when a nontarget in the cue color was added to the target display (Experiment 4). Overall, these findings suggest that capture by rare cues can be prevented when the suppressive bias against nontarget features is optimally directed against the cue properties. (PsycINFO Database Record