Role Of Attentional Control Research Articles

Mindfulness and Procrastination Among University EFL Learners: The Role of Attention Control and Self-Regulated Learning.

The present study aimed to investigate the interconnections among mindfulness, self-regulated learning (SRL), attention control, and procrastination among English as a foreign language (EFL) learner in Iran. Additionally, the mediating influence of SRL and attention control on mindfulness-procrastination link were tested. For this purpose, 272 university EFL students were conveniently selected and administered self-report questionnaires. Structural equation modeling and mediation analyses were employed. The results indicated that greater levels of SRL and attention control were related to lower levels of procrastination. Further, mindfulness directly predicted SRL and attention control. The findings also showed that although mindfulness did not directly account for procrastination, it could indirectly impact procrastination via the mediation of SRL and attention control. The findings were discussed, and implications and suggestions for future research were presented.

The role of attentional control in moderating attentional bias towards game-related stimuli in individuals with a high tendency for internet gaming addiction.

The aim of this study was to elucidate individual difference factors that modulate the attentional processing of game stimuli to explain the heterogeneity of extant findings. The current study examined whether individual differences in components of attentional control (AC-shifting and AC-focusing) moderated the link between internet gaming addiction symptom and attentional engagement to and disengagement biases from game-relevant cues. A total of 75 male undergraduate students who have played League of Legend (LOL) for more than 2 years completed well-established self-report questionnaires of internet gaming disorder symptoms and attentional control. The attentional bias toward game stimuli was measured for attentional engagement and disengagement using the attentional response to the distal vs. proximal emotional information (ARDPEI) task. The results revealed that attentional control was a significant moderator of the relationship between internet game addiction symptoms and attentional disengagement bias. Further analyses revealed a positive relationship between internet game addiction symptoms and attentional disengagement bias only among those with low levels of AC-shifting ability. Contrary to our expectations, AC-shifting also moderated the relationship between internet gaming disorder and attentional engagement bias. The positive relationship between internet game addiction symptoms and attentional engagement bias only appeared among those with low levels of AC-shifting ability. Individual differences in AC-focusing did not moderate the relationship between internet gaming disorder and any attentional bias. This study confirmed that the greater the symptoms of game addiction, the stronger the attentional bias, especially in individuals with low AC-shifting ability. Therefore, it is necessary to examine sub-factors of AC in understanding the nature of attentional bias mechanisms in the development of internet game addiction and consider it as a psychological intervention to improve attentional bias.

The Role of Attentional Control in Mindfulness Intervention for Emotional Distress: A Randomized Controlled Trial With Longitudinal Mediation Analyses.

This study aimed to investigate whether attentional control serves as a mediator for mindfulness-based interventions for emotional distress, utilizing a randomized waitlist (WL)-controlled design. A total of 498 participants with high emotional distress was recruited online and randomly assigned to a 49-day online Mindfulness Intervention for Emotional Distress (MIED) group (N = 249) or a WL control group (N = 249). Levels of attentional control, anxiety and depression were assessed at baseline (T0), Week 3 (T3), Week 5 (T5) and Week 7 (postintervention, T7). Linear mixed models revealed significant Group-by-Time interaction effects for attentional control (p < 0.001), anxiety (p < 0.001) and depression (p < 0.05). Latent growth curve analyses demonstrated a significant increase in attentional control and a decrease in anxiety and depression levels during the MIED programme. These changes becoming evident starting Week 3. Longitudinal mediation analyses revealed that the slope of attentional control significantly mediated the effects of the MIED programme on the slope of anxiety and depression levels. Further, attentional control level at Week 3 significantly mediates the effect of MIED programme on anxiety and depression levels at Weeks 5 and 7. Similarly, attentional control level at Week 5 significantly mediates the MIED programme's effects on anxiety and depression levels at Week 7. The present trial provides evidence suggesting that mindfulness interventions may alleviate emotional distress through the enhancement of attentional control. Chinese Clinical Trial Registry number: ChiCTR2200064140.

Left Frontoparietal Connectivity Counteracts Locus Coeruleus‐Related Attentional Decline in Preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease

AbstractBackgroundAutopsy work reported that neuronal density in the locus coeruleus (LC) provides neural reserve against cognitive decline in dementia. Recent neuroimaging and pharmacological studies have also ascribed a protective role of the LC against cognitive decline, possibly mediated by prefrontal functional connectivity (FC). Interestingly, higher left frontoparietal network (LFPN) FC provides resilience against cognitive decline in preclinical sporadic or autosomal Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Given that the FPN and the LC play an important role in attentional control, and attention deficits are affected early in the disease process, we aimed to examine whether LFPN‐FC can counteract the impact of poor LC structural health on attention in the context of AD pathology.Method143 participants from the Harvard Aging Brain study who underwent 3T resting‐state functional MRI, LC structural imaging, PiB(Aβ)‐PET, and up to 4 years of cognitive follow‐ups were included (90 F, mean age = 75±9.88, Table 1). The Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST) assessed attentional control. Robust linear regression associated LC integrity or LFPN connectivity to DSST performance at baseline. Robust mixed effect analyses examined the associations between DSST decline and (i) the two‐way interaction between LC integrity (or LFPN‐FC) and PiB (DVR‐PVC), or (ii) the three‐way interaction between LC integrity, LFPN‐FC, and PiB (DVR‐PVC). All analyses were adjusted for age, sex, and years of education.ResultAt baseline, lower LFPN‐FC (p = 0.001) was related to worse performance on the DSST, while no such association was found for LC integrity (p = 0.26). Longitudinally, both, lower LC integrity (p&lt;0.001) and LFPN‐FC (p = 0.026) were associated with faster DSST decline, especially at higher PiB levels (Figure 1). The modulating effect of LFPN‐FC is most prominent under lower LC structural integrity values, where higher levels of LFPN‐FC were associated with less steep decline on the DSST, in particular in individuals with higher PiB (p = 0.036, Figure 2).ConclusionOur findings demonstrate that when LC structural health is poor, higher LFPN‐FC can maintain cognitive performance even at higher levels of Aβ deposition in preclinical AD. These results provide critical insights and targets to support specific brain mechanisms that delay symptom progression in the early stages of the disease.

Spatiotemporal expectations of apparent motion and the effect of attentional control

An experimental investigation was conducted on whether and how temporal expectation influences visual processing in moving objects, while also considering the role of attention control. Data on reaction times were collected as outcome measures from two behavioural experiments. In experiment 1, participants (n = 36) were asked to monitor the movement of an object until its disappearance and respond quickly when it reappeared. The trajectory of an object before its disappearance generates expectations regarding the position and/or timing of its subsequent reappearance. Results revealed that all states of expectation significantly shortened reaction times compared with no expectation. In experiment 2, participants (n = 34) performed the same reaction time task while simultaneously engaging in a working memory task, which comprised memorising a string of characters. Results indicated that there is no difference in reaction times between the only temporal expectation and no expectation. Taken together, these results provide evidence to suggest that participants could predict the location and/or timing of target onset based on rhythmic moving objects, and that a secondary cognitive task impaired temporal expectation. These findings support the temporal expectation hypothesis regarding moving objects requiring attentional control resources.

Effects of different types of interference on nurses' working memory: An ERP study.

To explore the effects of different types of interference on nurses' working memory, and the role of attention control. A repeated measures design. A single-factor, four-level within-subjects design was adopted. Thirty-one nurses completed a delay-recognition task with four blocks in September 2020: Interrupting Stimulus (stimuli requiring attention), Distracting Stimulus (stimuli to-be-ignored), No Interference and Passively View. Behavioural responses of the participants and EEG data were recorded. MATLAB 21b and EEGLAB 21b were used for electroencephalogram data preprocessing and data extraction. Firstly, when nursing information system was used as task material, the accuracy rate and false alarm rate of primary tasks under interruption condition was statistically significantly different with that of distraction and no interference condition. There is a statistically significant difference in electroencephalogram measurement between correct and wrong response under interruption. Secondly, the role of attention control was different under interruption and distraction. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between the average amplitude distraction attention control index and task accuracy, and statistically significant negative correlation between the latency interruption attention control index and the accuracy of working memory task. There were different effects of interruptions and distractions on nurses' working memory and the role of attention control were also different. Measures can be designed according to these results to reduce the negative impact of interference on nurses, so as to improve work efficiency and reduce patient risk. This study has implications for clinical nursing during human-computer interaction. Resumption of the speed of the target information after an interruption affected task performance. Therefore, interventions should be designed to reduce the time needed for nurses to extract task information after an interruption, such as providing key clues in the information system interface. Registered nurses participated in the study as subjects.

The role of attention control in visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) studies

The detection of unattended visual changes is investigated by the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) component of event-related potentials (ERPs). The vMMN is measured as the difference between the ERPs to infrequent (deviant) and frequent (standard) stimuli irrelevant to the ongoing task. In the present study, we used human faces expressing different emotions as deviants and standards. In such studies, participants perform various tasks, so their attention is diverted from the vMMN-related stimuli. If such tasks vary in their attentional demand, they might influence the outcome of vMMN studies. In this study, we compared four kinds of frequently used tasks: (1) a tracking task that demanded continuous performance, (2) a detection task where the target stimuli appeared at any time, (3) a detection task where target stimuli appeared only in the inter-stimulus intervals, and (4) a task where target stimuli were members of the stimulus sequence. This fourth task elicited robust vMMN, while in the other three tasks, deviant stimuli elicited moderate posterior negativity (vMMN). We concluded that the ongoing task had a marked influence on vMMN; thus, it is important to consider this effect in vMMN studies.

Role of Attention Control in Social Dysfunction and Clinical Symptoms in High Worriers Examination of two positions based on the Self-Regulatory Executive Function model

Role of Attention Control in Social Dysfunction and Clinical Symptoms in High Worriers Examination of two positions based on the Self-Regulatory Executive Function model

The role of attentional control over interference in minor hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease

BackgroundMinor hallucinations in Parkinson's disease are associated with connectivity changes in attentional networks and increased risk of structured hallucinations. However, the clinical translation of these abnormalities in attention processes is not well-defined, and commonly used neuropsychological tests are not able to detect significant deficits in Parkinson's disease patients with isolated minor hallucinations. ObjectivesTo analyze the behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of minor hallucinations in Parkinson's disease during an attentional task assessing response inhibition and interference control. MethodsFifty-five non-demented Parkinson's disease patients with (PD-mH; n = 27) and without minor hallucinations (PD-NH; n = 28) were included in the analysis. An Ericksen flanker task was performed to compare the effect of presenting congruent and incongruent stimuli on accuracy, reaction times and stimulus-locked event-related potentials morphology. ResultsAlthough both groups showed equivalent performance in a standard neuropsychological assessment, in the flanker task accuracy rates were lower in the PD-mH group in incongruent trials (p = 0.005). In the event-related potentials, PD-mH patients showed increased amplitude of the N2 at Fz [t(53); p < 0.05] and decreased amplitude of the P300 at Pz [t(53); p < 0.05] for the incongruent trials. ConclusionsParkinson's disease patients with isolated minor hallucinations were more susceptible to interference mediated by irrelevant stimuli and had less cognitive control for suppressing these interferences. The failure of these systems could precipitate the intrusion and overrepresentation of peripheral irrelevant stimuli perceived as minor hallucinations. The Ericksen flanker task could be used as a sensitive clinical marker of the attentional defects leading to hallucinations in Parkinson's disease.

Attentional control and metacognitive monitoring of the effects of different types of task-irrelevant sound on serial recall.

The presence of task-irrelevant sound disrupts short-term memory for serial information. Recent studies found that enhanced perceptual task-encoding load (static visual noise added to target items) reduces the disruptive effect of an auditory deviant but does not affect the task-specific interference by changing-state sound, indicating that the deviation effect may be more susceptible to attentional control. This study aimed to further specify the role of attentional control in shielding against different types of auditory distraction, examining speech and nonspeech distractors presented in laboratory and Web based experiments. To further elucidate the role of controlled processes, we tested whether the detrimental effects of distractor sounds-and their modulation by attentional control-reach participants' awareness. We found that changing-state sound and auditory deviants in steady-state sound equally affected both objective recall performance and metacognitive confidence judgments but did not affect the accuracy of confidence judgments. Most importantly, across four experiments, an increase of task load (visual degradation of the to-be-remembered items) did not reduce either type of auditory distraction. A close replication of the original modulation of the deviation effect by perceptual task load (in an online environment) even revealed a stronger deviation effect at high task load, suggesting that the manipulation may have influenced cognitive load and the ability to control distractor interference in memory. In line with a unitary account of auditory distraction, the results suggest that although both types of distraction reach metacognitive awareness, they may be equally unrelated to perceptual load and the availability of attentional resources. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Paying Attention to Trust: Exploring the Relationship Between Attention Control and Trust in Automation

As automation continues to pervade people’s lives, it is critical to understand the reasons why some interactions are successful while others fail. Previous research attempting to explain this variability in HAI through individual differences in working memory has been mixed. Research in cognitive psychology has demonstrated the importance of attention control as a fundamental mechanism underlying higher-order cognition. In the realm of automation, early work has demonstrated a link between attention control and performance (Foroughi et al., 2019). The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the relationship between attention control and attitudes towards automation, particularly trust. Our results found attention control to be correlated with propensity to trust and negative attitudes towards robots. These results encourage further inquiry into the role of attention control in HAI.

The Role of Attentional Control in Attention to Emotional Stimuli Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults

Prior studies have examined age differences in attention to emotional stimuli; in the current study, we considered how this might relate to dispositional measures of attentional control across age groups. Participants were 116 middle-aged (aged 35 – 64 years) and 39 older (aged 65-86 years) adults in the United States. In the study, participants filled in the Emotional Attentional Control Scale. Then participants watched fearful, happy, neutral, and disgusting videos. The gaze time for each video was measured by an eye tracker. Results did not show significant age difference in attention to happy and neutral videos. However, middle-aged adults gazed relatively more to the disgusting video and relatively less to the fearful video, t (115) =2.16, p =.03. The opposite pattern was found among older adults, t (38) =5.85, p<.001. Self-reported emotional attentional control was not significantly related to attention in either age group. These findings suggest that different stimuli may yield age differences in fixation that are a less consistent pattern with the age-related positivity effect reported in previous studies, and also that self-reported emotional attentional control may not relate to gaze patterns.

The Role of Attentional Control in Cognitive Deficits Associated With Chronic Pain

Cognitive deficits in chronic pain are often attributed to difficulties in attentional control. According to the deficit view, these difficulties stem from a reduction in attentional capacity driven by attentional focus on pain experience; alternatively, according to the motivated-attention view, attentional biases toward pain-relevant threats in the environment reduce attention available for everyday tasks and goals. We tested both accounts using a task in which 72 people with chronic pain and 72 without chronic pain performed a simple perceptual task while attempting to ignore pain-relevant images of body mutilations or neutral scenes. They also completed a common test of attentional control. Although people with chronic pain reported subjective difficulty with attentional control and were slower on both tasks, groups did not differ on behavioral measures of attentional control. Findings suggest that attentional control may not be an optimal target for interventions intended to improve cognitive function in chronic pain.

Distinguishing spontaneous from deliberate mind wandering in adolescents: The role of attentional control and depressive symptoms.

Research on individual differences in mind wandering (MW) in healthy adults has supported the separation of spontaneous and deliberate MW given their different association with a number of psychological traits. This study aimed to further test this distinction by investigating the associations of the two types of MW with attentional control and depressive symptomatology in adolescents. Data were collected on 439 9-10th graders, who completed measures of spontaneous and deliberate MW, distractibility, difficulty in attentional shifting, and depressive symptomatology. A multivariate three-level multiple regression revealed that distractibility was a significant predictor of only spontaneous MW, whereas difficulties in attentional shifting and depressive symptoms were significant predictors of both types of MW. However, the last two variables were stronger predictors for spontaneous than for deliberate MW. These findings provide support for the distinction, beyond their theoretical and empirical overlap, between the two types of MW also in adolescents and suggest the independent contribution of cognitive functioning and depressive symptoms. Statement of contribution What is already known? Studies on mind wandering (MW) in adults have shown that spontaneous and deliberate MW reflect dissociable cognitive experiences. In adults, trait-level tendency to spontaneous MW seems to reflect difficulties in controlled attentional processing. The majority of studies on MW in adolescents have treated this phenomenon as unitary and found a relation with negative affect, stress, and self-esteem. What does this study add? This is the first study to examine cognitive functioning and depressive symptoms as correlates of spontaneous and deliberate MW in adolescents. We found that distractibility is a significant predictor of only spontaneous MW. Difficulties in attentional shifting and depressive symptoms are significant predictors of both types of MW, although stronger for spontaneous MW. The findings support the distinction, beyond their theoretical and empirical overlap, between the two types of MW also in adolescents and call for future studies on the function of deliberate and spontaneous MW across development.

Visuospatial task-related prefrontal activity is correlated with negative symptoms in schizophrenia

Control of attention is thought to be specifically impaired in schizophrenia due to abnormal function in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The PFC plays a critical role in the identification of relevant stimuli and the development of appropriate biases for the identified signals, including selection of an appropriate attentional ‘zoom’. We examined how demands associated with changes in attentional requirements in a Sustained Attention Task (SAT) may contribute to differences in functional involvement of the PFC and relation to clinical status. A group of 24 individuals with schizophrenia and 16 healthy controls (N = 40) performed the SAT and a visuospatial condition (vSAT) while activity in the bilateral anterior PFC was monitored using functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). The results confirm that the right frontopolar region plays a role in control of attention for both patients and healthy controls. However, patients with schizophrenia exhibited a general attentional deficit and inefficient right-medial PFC activation. Additionally, we observed a strong regional association between left Middle Frontal Gyrus (MFG) activity during the vSAT task and the PANSS score driven by the negative symptom subscale. The presence of aberrant activation differences within the left-MFG region may describe a dysregulation of attentional networks linked to the clinical expression of negative and general symptoms.

The Role of Attentional Control in the Relationship Between Mindfulness and Anxiety.

Mindfulness has been robustly associated with psychological health, predicting greater well-being, and lower levels of anxiety, depression, and stress across samples. Attentional control is the ability to voluntarily shift, focus, and train one's attention and has also been linked with better psychological functioning. Less well-understood, however, are which domains of mindfulness may be associated with particular aspects of mental health, including anxiety, and whether attentional control may help to explain the relationship between specific facets of mindfulness and anxiety. This study examined self-reported shifting and focusing attentional control as mediators of the relationships between five domains of dispositional mindfulness (i.e., observing, describing, acting with awareness, nonjudging, and nonreacting) and symptoms of anxiety. Two hundred and eighty-six college students completed self-report questionnaires measuring dispositional mindfulness, attentional control, and symptoms of anxiety. Using mediation analyses, findings revealed an indirect effect of two facets of mindfulness on anxiety through focusing attentional control after controlling for shifting attentional control. These findings suggest that specific mindfulness skills are related to better attentional control skills, and that focusing attentional control may then protect against anxiety symptoms in college students. These results have critical implications for college students, who are experiencing anxiety and stress at increasing levels.

High working memory capacity facilitates distraction as an emotion regulation strategy

Previous research suggests that distraction, which shifts attention away from negative situations or stimuli, reduces negative emotion. Although working memory capacity plays an important role in attention control, it remains unclear whether working memory capacity influences the effect of distraction as an emotion regulation strategy. In this study, we examined the relationship between working memory capacity and distraction. Seventy-six healthy undergraduate and graduate students participated in this study. Participants watched a movie clip that evoked negative emotion. Approximately half of the participants subsequently engaged in a distraction task in which they selected a category for 32 displayed images; the other half of the participants were instructed to wait 210 s as a questionnaire was prepared. The participants were asked to respond to the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule before and after watching the movie clip, as well as after completing the distraction task or waiting. A multiple regression analysis showed an interaction between the effectiveness of distraction and working memory capacity. As predicted, among participants in the distraction condition, those with higher working memory capacity expressed less negative emotion than those with lower working memory capacity. This result suggests that the effectiveness of distraction depends on individual differences in working memory capacity.

Roles of posterior parietal and dorsal premotor cortices in relative pitch processing: Comparing musical intervals to lexical tones

Humans use time-varying pitch patterns to convey information in music and speech. Recognition of musical melodies and lexical tones relies on relative pitch (RP), the ability to identify intervals between two pitches. RP processing in music is usually more fine-grained than that in tonal languages. In Western music, there are twelve pitch categories within an octave, whereas there are only three level (non-glide) lexical tones in Taiwanese (or Taiwanese Hokkien, a tonal language). The present study aimed at comparing the neural substrates underlying RP processing of musical melodic intervals with that of level lexical tones in Taiwanese. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data from fourteen participants with good RP were analyzed. The results showed that imagining the sounds of visually presented musical intervals was associated with enhanced activity in the central subregion of the right dorsal premotor cortex (dPMC), right posterior parietal cortex (PPC), and right dorsal precuneus compared to auditory imagery of visually presented Taiwanese bi-character words with level lexical tones. During the sound-congruence-judgement task (auditory imagery of musical intervals or bi-character words, and subsequently judging if the imagined sounds were melodically congruent with heard sounds), the contrast of the musical minus linguistic conditions yielded activity in the bilateral dPMC-PPC network and dorsal precuneus, with the dPMC activated in the rostral subregion. The central dPMC and PPC may mediate the attention-based maintenance of pitch intervals, whereas the dorsal precuneus may support attention control and the spatial/sensorimotor processing of the fine-grained pitch structures of music. When judging the congruence between the imagined and heard musical intervals, the bilateral rostral dPMC may play a role in attention control, working memory, evaluation of motor activities, and monitoring mechanisms. Based on the findings of this study and recent studies of amusia, we suggest that higher order cognitive operations are critical to the more fine-grained pitch processing of musical melodies compared to lexical tones.

Relationships among mindfulness, anxiety and depression in surface warship soldiers: the mediating role of attentional control

Objective To investigate the relationships between mindfulness, anxiety and depression in surface warship soldiers and the mediating role of attentional control. Methods Chinese versions of State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), Attentional Control Scale (ACS) and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) were used to survey 475 surface warship soldiers. Single factor analysis of variance, correlation analysis and path analysis were conducted by SPSS 20.0 and Amos18.0. Results ① The scores of the state anxiety, trait anxiety and depression in the soldiers and noncommissioned officers were significantly higher than that of commissioned officers (P<0.05). As for the state anxiety, trait anxiety, depression and attentional focusing, there were statistically significant differences among different educational levels (P<0.05). Specifically, the lower educational level, the higher anxiety and depression, the lower control focusing. ② There were significant positive correlations among attentional focusing (27.12±4.43), attentional shifting (29.43±3.78) and mindfulness (120.27±11.16, r=0.49-0.51, P<0.01). State anxiety (38.65±10.07) was negatively correlated with attentional focusing, attentional shifting and mindfulness (r=-0.32--0.54, P<0.01). Similar results were observed for trait anxiety (41.28±8.79) and depression (9.97±10.13). ③Attentional focusing partially mediated the relationships between state anxiety, trait anxiety, depression and mindfulness. Conclusion Anxiety and depression of soldiers have obvious relationships with kinds of soldiers’ rank and education level. Mindfulness and attentional control are vital protective factors for marine army’s mental health. This study indicates that mindfulness may improve individuals’ attentional focusing and attentional shifting, and ameliorate negative moods such as anxiety and depression. Key words: Mindfulness; State anxiety; Trait anxiety; Depression; Attentional control

Rejecting salient distractors: Generalization from experience.

Distraction impairs performance of many important, everyday tasks. Attentional control limits distraction by preferentially selecting important items for limited-capacity cognitive operations. Research in attentional control has typically investigated the degree to which selection of items is stimulus-driven versus goal-driven. Recent work finds that when observers initially learn a task, the selection is based on stimulus-driven factors, but through experience, goal-driven factors have an increasing influence. The modulation of selection by goals has been studied within the paradigm of learned distractor rejection, in which experience over a sequence of trials enables individuals eventually to ignore a perceptually salient distractor. The experiments presented examine whether observers can generalize learned distractor rejection to novel distractors. Observers searched for a target and ignored a salient color-singleton distractor that appeared in half of the trials. In Experiment 1, observers who learned distractor rejection in a variable environment rejected a novel distractor more effectively than observers who learned distractor rejection in a less variable, homogeneous environment, demonstrating that variable, heterogeneous stimulus environments encourage generalizable learned distractor rejection. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated the time course of learned distractor rejection across the experiment and found that after experiencing four color-singleton distractors in different blocks, observers could effectively reject subsequent novel color-singleton distractors. These results suggest that the optimization of attentional control to the task environment can be interpreted as a form of learning, demonstrating experience's critical role in attentional control.