Pinging the Hidden Attentional Priority Map: Suppression Needs Attention

Attentional capture by an irrelevant salient distractor is attenuated when the distractor is presented more frequently in one location compared to other locations, suggesting that people learn to suppress an irrelevant salient location. However, to date it is unclear whether this suppression is proactive, applied before attention has been directed to the distractor location, or reactive, occurring after attention has been directed to that specific location. The aim of the present study is to investigate how suppression is accomplished by using the pinging technique, which allows one to probe how attention is distributed across the visual field prior to the presentation of the search display. In an EEG experiment, participants performed a visual search task wherein they were tasked with identifying a shape singleton in the presence of an irrelevant color singleton. Compared to all other locations, this color singleton appeared more frequently at a specific location, which was termed the high-probability location. Prior to the search task, we introduced a continuous recall spatial memory task to reveal the hidden attentional priority map. Participants had to memorize the location of a memory cue continuously and report this location after the visual search task. Critically, after the presentation of the memory cue but before the onset of the search display, a neutral placeholder display was presented to probe how the hidden priority map is reconfigured by the learned distractor suppression. Behaviorally, there was clear evidence that the high-probability location was suppressed, as search was more efficient when the distractor appeared at this location. To examine the priority map prior to search, we adopted an inverted encoding approach to reconstruct the tuning profile of the memorized position in the spatial memory task. Inverted modeling resulted in reliable tuning profiles during memory maintenance that gradually decayed and that were revived again by the onset of a neutral placeholder display preceding search. After the onset of the placeholders, the tuning profile observed was characterized by a spatial gradient centered over the high-probability location, with tuning being most pronounced at the-to-be suppressed location. This finding suggests that while learned suppression is initiated prior to search display onset, it is preceded by an initial phase of spatial selection, which is in line with a reactive suppression account. Together these results further our understanding of the mechanism of spatial distractor suppression.