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Suppression on the basis of template for rejection is reactive: Evidence from human electrophysiology

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Abstract

According to most theories of attention, the selection of task-relevant visual information can be enhanced by holding them in visual working memory (VWM). However, there has been a long-standing debate concerning whether similar optimization can also be achieved for task-irrelevant information, known as a “template for rejection”. The present study aimed to explore this issue by examining the consequence of cue distractors before visual search tasks. For this endeavor, we manipulated the display heterogeneity by using two distractor conditions, salient and non-salient, to explore the extent to which holding the distractor color in VWM might affect attentional selection. We measured the reaction times of participants while their EEG activity was recorded. The results showed that WM-matched distractors did not improve reaction times but rather slowed them down in both tasks. Event-related potential (ERP) results showed that the display heterogeneity had no modulatory effect on the degree of distractor suppression. Even in the salient distractor condition, the WM-matched distractor received no greater suppression. Furthermore, the WM-matched distractor but not the neutral distractor elicited an N2pc before the PD in salient distractor conditions. This suggests that the template for rejection operates reactively since suppression occurs after extra attentional processes to the distractor. Moreover, the presence of WM-matched distractors led to a reduction of P3b, indicating a competition between target processing and WM-matched distractor rejection. Our findings provide insights into the mechanisms underlying the optimization of attentional selection, and have implications for future studies aimed at understanding the role of VWM in cognition.

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Data Availability

We have no plans to submit data availability statements. Data and materials for the experiments are available upon request from the authors.

Notes

  1. In the classic flanker task, the target is surrounded on either side by task-irrelevant distractors that can share the same or a different response as the target. The typical result is that RTs are longer when the peripheral distractors are response incongruent than when the flankers are congruent with the response to the centrally presented target. One would account for this slower performance as distractor interference instead of attention captured by peripheral distractors.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31970993 and No. 32271107) to SF. Data and materials for the experiments are available upon request from the authors. The experiment was not preregistered.

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  1. Chao Pang, Yanzhang Chen and Yue Zhang contributed equally to this research.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, School of Education, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Chao Pang, Yue Zhang, Weizhi Nan & Shimin Fu

  2. Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China

    Yanzhang Chen

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Pang, C., Chen, Y., Zhang, Y. et al. Suppression on the basis of template for rejection is reactive: Evidence from human electrophysiology. Atten Percept Psychophys 86, 1148–1162 (2024). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-024-02873-y

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