Abstract
It has been shown that a spatial location that frequently contains a salient color distractor can be suppressed via statistical learning. However, we make frequent eye movements in the real world, which results in different retinotopic (gaze-centered) input with different eye positions. Is learned spatial suppression updated when our eyes move? In the current study, participants performed a visual search task while fixating at a single location (gaze position 1) during the training session, and then performed the same task while fixating at a new location (gaze position 2) during the test session. Participants searched four items for a shape oddball (e.g., a diamond among circles) while ignoring a salient color singleton distractor that appeared on two-thirds of trials. In the training session, the salient color distractor most frequently appeared in a particular high-probability location. Reduced attentional capture (i.e., spatial suppression) was found when the salient distractor appeared in the high-probability location compared to elsewhere, replicating prior work. Critically, participants made a one-time saccade to a new fixation location between the training and test sessions, which dissociated retinotopic and spatiotopic frames of reference in the test session: the salient distractor could now appear at the retinotopic high-probability location, the spatiotopic high-probability location, or a low-probability location. The salient color distractor appeared equally often at each location in the test session. Learned spatial suppression was transferred into the test session in retinotopic coordinates. Reduced attentional capture was observed when the salient color distractor appeared in the retinotopic high-probability location, but not the spatiotopic high-probability location, compared to low-probability locations. These results suggest that learned spatial suppression persists across changes in gaze position when statistical regularities are no longer in place; yet strikingly it persists in retinotopic coordinates, rather than the more ecologically relevant spatiotopic location.