Top-down attentional control for distractor locations: the benefit of precuing distractor locations on target localization and discrimination.

This study investigated the active inhibition of precued distractor locations. In this study, the distractor location was precued by an arrow. Experiment 1 indicated that a valid precue could facilitate target localization. Experiment 2 demonstrated that when conflict trials were included, the distractor precue benefit was eliminated. Experiment 3 further showed that active inhibition required time to operate. The distractor precue benefit was observed only when the stimulus onset asynchrony between the precue and the target and distractor display was long. Experiment 4 illustrated that the benefit was not contingent on precuing the distractor response. Experiment 5 indicated that the benefit of distractor precuing was not due to the activation of target locations, and Experiment 6 showed that this benefit was due to attentional inhibition. Finally, Experiment 7 demonstrated that active inhibition of spatial location required an attentional resource to operate. These results indicated how a top-down mechanism exerted control on distractor locations.