Abstract
Most theories of visual attention posit a selective mechanism that allows relevant information to proceed through processing while filtering out irrelevant, distracting, stimuli. Visual search is more efficient when target-features are known in advance, through guidance with a target-template. Further, visual attention can learn to reject distractors through experience with statistical regularities, by establishing an experience-based template for rejection. The current study was aimed at determining whether visual attention could learn to reject distractors through feature-based experience in the presence of strong target guidance, and under which circumstances this learning occurred. In three experiments, we presented individuals with two-color, spatially unsegregated visual search displays. Prior to each search display, individuals were presented with a word cue either indicating the target color or the word “neutral”. For each individual, the target never appeared in one color: the learned distractor color. In Experiment 1a, we presented neutral cues only, and observed learned distractor rejection, namely, faster mean RTs on trials with the learned distractor color present than absent. In Experiment 1b, to demonstrate learned distractor rejection with target guidance, we presented both types of cues, and observed a target cueing effect (faster mean RTs on trials following a target cue than a neutral cue), and critically, learned distractor rejection following both neutral cues and target cues. In Experiment 2, we asked whether learned distractor rejection required the neutral trials to establish learning, and found that it did not. Finally, in Experiment 3, we provided more direct target guidance, namely, the cue directed individuals to the only color-matching item in the display and we still observed learned distractor rejection during target guidance. Thus, we argue that visual attention can establish both target templates and templates for rejection and use both templates to guide visual search.