Susceptibility to Attentional Capture by Target-Matching Distractors Predicts High Visual Working Memory Capacity

Abstract

Recent event-related potential (ERP) studies showed that individuals with low visual working memory (VWM) capacity are more susceptible to salience-driven attentional capture than high-capacity individuals are, with the latter being able to proactively suppress salient but irrelevant distractors. However, it remains unclear whether and how contingent attentional capture by distractors that possess a task-relevant (target) feature is related to VWM capacity. Here, we adopted a central focused-attention task that contained peripheral target-matching distractors to investigate this issue (N = 51 adults). Surprisingly, we revealed that target-matching distractors elicited both a larger N2-posterior-contralateral (N2pc) and a larger post-N2pc distractor positivity (PD) component in high-capacity individuals than in low-capacity ones, meaning that high-capacity individuals are less able to ignore such distractors initially, though they could call on a stronger reactive suppression mechanism afterward. These findings illustrate that high-capacity individuals are more (rather than less or equally) susceptible to contingent attention capture compared with low-capacity ones.