Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 7-9, 1081 BT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Institute Brain and Behavior (iBBA), Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2023 May;85(4):1012-1020. doi: 10.3758/s13414-023-02704-6. Epub 2023 Apr 6.
Recent studies have shown that observers can learn to suppress a location that is most likely to contain a distractor. The current study investigates whether the statistically learned suppression is already in place, before, or implemented exactly at the moment participants expect the display to appear. Participants performed a visual search task in which a distractor was presented more frequently at the high-probability location (HPL) in a search display. Occasionally, the search display was replaced by a probe display in which participants needed to detect a probe offset. The temporal relationship between the probe display and the search display was manipulated by varying the stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) in the probe task. In this way, the attentional distribution in space was probed before, exactly at, or after the moment when the search display was expected to be presented. The results showed a statistically learned suppression at the HPL, as evidenced by faster and more accurate search when a distractor was presented at this location. Crucially, irrespective of the SOA, probe detection was always slower at the HPL than at the low-probability locations, indicating that the spatial suppression induced by statistical learning is proactively implemented not just at the moment the display is expected, but prior to display onset. We conclude that statistical learning affects the weights within the priority map relatively early in time, well before the availability of the search display.
最近的研究表明，观察者可以学会抑制最有可能包含干扰物的位置。本研究调查了在参与者期望显示出现之前，是否已经存在、预先存在或确切地在统计学习的抑制位置上。参与者执行了一项视觉搜索任务，其中在搜索显示中，干扰物更频繁地出现在高概率位置 (HPL)。偶尔，搜索显示会被探针显示取代，参与者需要在其中检测探针偏移。通过在探针任务中改变刺激起始时的差异（SOA）来操纵探针显示和搜索显示之间的时间关系。通过这种方式，在搜索显示预期出现之前、确切地在搜索显示出现时或之后探测空间中的注意力分布。结果表明，在 HPL 处存在统计学习的抑制，这表现为在该位置呈现干扰物时搜索速度更快、更准确。至关重要的是，无论 SOA 如何，在 HPL 处的探针检测总是比在低概率位置处更慢，这表明统计学习引起的空间抑制不仅在显示预期出现时被主动实施，而且在显示出现之前就被实施了。我们的结论是，统计学习会在时间上相对较早地影响优先级图中的权重，远远早于搜索显示的出现。
