@article{ref1,
title="Does it help to expect distraction? Attentional capture is attenuated by high distractor frequency but not by trial-to-trial predictability",
journal="Journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance",
year="2022",
author="Bogaerts, Louisa and van Moorselaar, Dirk and Theeuwes, Jan",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="Salient distractors such as color singletons typically capture attention. Recent studies have shown that probabilistic expectations of color singletons' occurrence-even when their location and features are unpredictable-can eliminate attentional capture. Here we ask whether this effect, referred to as &quot;second-order distractor suppression,&quot; (a) could be merely a result of repetition priming, and (b) is also observed when distractor occurrences are predictable within a sequence of trials? Experiment 1 introduces a novel approach for manipulating the frequency of distractor occurrence while controlling for intertrial priming by design, by embedding identical trial sequences in the to-be-compared conditions. We observed no elimination but significant attenuation of capture in the condition with a higher distractor frequency. In Experiments 2 and 3 we investigated the effect of the trial-to-trial predictability of distractor presence. Repeating regular distractor absent/present patterns did not result in attenuated capture compared with a random condition, not even when upcoming distractor presence was cued. Taken together, the results demonstrate that second-order distractor suppression is not merely a result of repetition priming. However, it is not a response to any type of expectation; this nonspecific type of suppression is almost instantly elicited by environments characterized by a high likelihood of distractors but not by distractor presence that can be anticipated on a trial-by-trial basis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0096-1523",
doi="10.1037/xhp0000986",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000986"
}