School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
J Vis. 2022 Feb 1;22(2):8. doi: 10.1167/jov.22.2.8.
It is well known that attention can be automatically attracted to salient items. However, recent studies show that it is possible to avoid distraction by a salient item (with a known feature), leading to facilitated search. This article tests a proposed mechanism for distractor inhibition: that a mental representation of the distractor feature held in visual working memory (VWM) allows attention to be guided away from the distractor. We tested this explanation by examining color-based inhibition in visual search for a shape target with and without VWM load. In Experiment 1 the presence of a distractor facilitated visual search under low and high VWM loads, as reflected in faster response times when the distractor was present (compared to absent), and in fewer eye movements to the salient distractor than the non-target items. However, the eye movement inhibition effect was noticeably weakened in the load conditions. Experiment 2 explored further, to distinguish between inhibition of the distractor color and activation of the (irrelevant) target color. Intermittently presenting single-color search trials that contained only either a target, distractor or a neutral-colored singleton revealed that the distractor color attracted attention less than the neutral color with and without VWM load. The target color, however, only attracted attention more than neutral colors under no load, whereas a VWM load completely eliminated this effect. This suggests that although VWM plays a role in guiding attention to the (irrelevant) target color, distractor-feature inhibition can operate independently.
众所周知，注意力可以自动被显著项目吸引。然而，最近的研究表明，通过对一个显著项目（已知特征）的回避，有可能避免分心，从而促进搜索。本文测试了一种用于分心抑制的假设机制：在视觉工作记忆（VWM）中保持的分心特征的心理表征允许注意力从分心物上转移开。我们通过检查 VWM 负载下和没有 VWM 负载下形状目标的视觉搜索中基于颜色的抑制来检验这种解释。在实验 1 中，当存在分心物时，无论 VWM 负载高低，视觉搜索都会更快，这反映在当分心物存在时（与不存在时相比）反应时间更快，并且与非目标项目相比，对显著分心物的眼动更少。然而，在负载条件下，眼动抑制效应明显减弱。实验 2 进一步探索了，以区分分心物颜色的抑制和（不相关）目标颜色的激活。间歇性地呈现仅包含目标、分心物或中性单色调的单一颜色搜索试验表明，无论是否有 VWM 负载，分心物颜色的吸引力都小于中性颜色。然而，只有在没有负载的情况下，目标颜色才会比中性颜色更吸引注意力，而 VWM 负载则完全消除了这种效应。这表明，尽管 VWM 在引导注意力到（不相关）目标颜色方面起着作用，但分心物特征抑制可以独立运作。
