Selective Attention Inhibition Research Articles

Inhibition in selective attention.

Our ability to focus on goal‐relevant aspects of the environment is critically dependent on our ability to ignore or inhibit distracting information. One perspective is that distractor inhibition is under similar voluntary control as attentional facilitation of target processing. However, a rapidly growing body of research shows that distractor inhibition often relies on prior experience with the distracting information or other mechanisms that need not rely on active representation in working memory. Yet, how and when these different forms of inhibition are neurally implemented remains largely unclear. Here, we review findings from recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies to address this outstanding question. We specifically explore how experience with distracting information may change the processing of that information in the context of current predictive processing views of perception: by modulating a distractor's representation already in anticipation of the distractor, or after integration of top‐down and bottom‐up sensory signals. We also outline directions for future research necessary to enhance our understanding of how the brain filters out distracting information.

Facilitation and inhibition in selective attention: Two sides of the same coin?

A long-standing question in attention research has been if and how attention can suppress distracting information. Previous studies addressing this question often used paradigms in which the task-relevant location was known beforehand, so that observers could simply pay more attention to the relevant location to prevent distraction. This renders it unclear whether enhancement and suppression always co-occur, as two sides of the same coin, or whether they subserve independent mechanisms. We conducted two behavioural and one EEG experiment to examine whether observers can selectively suppress irrelevant locations and the underlying neural mechanisms. Search displays with repeating target or distractor locations across trials allowed observers to learn which location to selectively attend or suppress. Both learned attention and suppression resulted in more efficient search as indexed by faster response times. Crucially, suppression was observed without target-location foreknowledge, unaffected by the number of possible target locations, and could not be explained by priming. To determine how distractor-location foreknowledge facilitated performance, we applied a spatial encoding model to EEG data to reconstruct activity in neural populations tuned to the relevant or irrelevant location. Target-location foreknowledge increased neural tuning to the relevant location prior to stimulus presentation, indicative of enhanced attention. This sensitivity increased after target presentation. By contrast, distractor repetition only changed neural tuning to the distractor location immediately preceding visual stimulation, and subsequently reduced distractor processing, as reflected in a flattening of the tuning curve and the disappearance of the Pd ERP component. These findings suggest independent facilitatory and inhibitory attentional mechanisms. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018

Priming of Pop-out does not provide reliable measures of target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention: Evidence from a large-scale online study

Lamy, Antebi, Aviani, and Carmel (2008) reported that in a simple search task where participants located an odd coloured circle, the inter-trial relations could be used to derive robust and independent measures of target activation and distractor inhibition. When a target feature repeated there was a benefit, and when the previous target feature became the distractor feature there was a cost. These two measures correlated and were taken to reflect a measure of target activation. When the distractor feature repeated there was a benefit and when the previous distractor feature became the current target feature there was a cost, these two measures correlated and were taken to reflect a measure of distractor inhibition. In the current study we examined the same colour search task online on a large group of 312 participants. The results revealed significant effects of target and distractor repetition and switching. However, the correlations reported by Lamy et al. (2008) were non-significant. Instead we found the correlations between the two measures of repetition and the two measures of switching.

When Age Is Irrelevant: Distractor Inhibition and Target Activation in Priming of Pop-Out

Recent research suggests that inhibition at early stages of visual processing may be age invariant. We test this proposal using a priming of pop-out (PoP) measure developed by Lamy, Antebi, Aviani, and Carmel (2008. Priming of pop-out provides reliable measures of target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention. Vision Research, 48, 30-41. doi:10.1016/j.visres.2007.10.009). In PoP, a unique item, which visually "pops-out" in a field of distractors, grabs our attention faster when its defining feature (e.g., color red) repeats across trials and slower when distractor- and target-defining features switch between trials. Here, we explore whether the processes underlying PoP, which prevent access to distractors and facilitate access to the singleton, remain intact with age. Participants faced a display of circles and judged the direction of a letter T inscribed within a uniquely colored circle. All underlying components of PoP were present in older and younger adults. Participants revealed distractor inhibition by responding faster to a color singleton when the color of surrounding distractors repeated and slower when the singleton assumed the color of distractors from the previous trial. Our findings suggest that the inhibitory processes underlying PoP remain intact with age.

Priming of Pop-out provides reliable measures of target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention

Recent research has demonstrated a striking role for intertrial priming in visual search. When searching for a discrepant target, repetition of the target feature speeds search, an effect known as Priming of Pop-out (PoP). In two experiments involving color singletons, we identified two independent components of PoP, target activation and distractor inhibition. Each component was reflected by two measures, a repetition benefit and a switching cost, that were highly correlated. Large individual differences on each component were observed and persisted when test and retest were separated by one week. The results suggest that PoP may be a reliable tool for assessing individual differences on target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention.

Attentional Inhibition in Patients with Focal Frontal Lobe Lesions

Patients with unilateral, frontal lobe damage and matched controls performed an identity negative priming task as a measure of inhibition in selective attention. Control participants demonstrated a normal negative priming effect, as evidenced by slower reaction times when a previously to-be-ignored item became the target on a subsequent trial (distractor suppression). On the other hand, patients with left medial frontal lobe damage showed positive priming in the distractor suppression condition suggesting facilitation of distractor information. Patients with right frontal lobe damage showed an unreliable pattern of negative priming, some demonstrating an absence of negative priming and others demonstrating enhanced negative priming in the distractor suppression condition. Neither patient group nor controls demonstrated slower responses on a target-to-distractor condition included to evaluate a noninhibitory (i.e., episodic retrieval) account of negative priming. Taken together, our results suggest that (a) the negative priming effect represents active inhibition of a distractor representation, rather than a noninhibitory mismatch between retrieval episodes, and (b) that the frontal lobes, especially the left frontal lobes, contribute to this active inhibition. This research was supported by the Epilepsy Foundation through the generous support of the American Epilepsy Society and by an American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award

Issues in Preventive Intervention Research

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Costs and benefits of target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention.

Costs and benefits of target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention.

Negative priming between response modalities: evidence for the central locus of inhibition in selective attention.

Considerable research has demonstrated that distractor stimuli impair response to targets. Such observations suggest that distractor stimuli are analyzed at least to the level of incipient response (Eriksen, Eriksen, & Hoffman, 1986). There is also debate about the mechanisms that enable the subject to make the correct response to the target rather than the incorrect response to the distractor. One model proposes that the internal representations of distractor stimuli are inhibited during selection and execution of the response to the target (Neill, 1977; Tipper, 1985). This inhibition occurs at, or beyond, the level of abstract categorical representation, rather than at the earlier level of representations of physical properties of the distractor stimulus (Tipper & Driver, in press). An experiment is reported in which we further investigated the locus of inhibition by looking at whether or not inhibition is isolated in output modalities (for example, verbal naming or manual keypress). The evidence suggests that inhibition is isolated not in response systems, but rather at some central locus common to a variety of separate perceptual inputs and response outputs.