Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
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J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform · Jan 2019
Evidence for second-order singleton suppression based on probabilistic expectations.
Decades of research in attention have shown that salient distractors (e.g., a color singleton) tend to capture attention. However, in most studies, singleton distractors are just as likely to be present as absent. We therefore have little knowledge of how probabilistic expectations of the salient distractor's occurrence and features affect suppression. ⋯ The letter in the singleton location was reported less often in the high-frequency condition, suggesting proactive suppression of expected singleton. Additionally, we found that trial-to-trial repetitions of a singleton (irrespective of its color and location) facilitated performance (i.e., singleton repetition priming), but repetitions of its specific color or location did not. Together our findings demonstrate that attentional capture by a color singleton distractor is attenuated by probabilistic expectations of its occurrence, but not of its color and location. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).