Abstract
Object categories are believed to be organized hierarchically, such that a category’s typical exemplars form the basis of categorical attentional templates that determine how attention is deployed. We ask how encountering category members modifies formation of these templates, specifically through a biased competition mechanism found when voluntarily up- or down-regulating objects. In Experiment 1, we tested whether this form of competition is required in template formation. In each trial, participants were cued to either attend or suppress one of two exemplars of the same category (single cue conditions) or to do both at the same time (double cue). Then, they searched for that category in an array of different objects containing either the attended or suppressed exemplar. Search for suppressed objects was slower than attended objects, but only when competition was present (double cue). This points to the necessity of biased competition at encoding to enhance or suppress exemplars when forming categorical templates. We replicated this effect in Experiment 2, which again either induced biased competition (double cues) or did not (same cue: attend or suppress both objects at the same time). To verify that suppression occurred, Experiment 3 included a baseline condition where participants were instructed not to attend to or suppress either image. Search was slower for suppressed items relative to baseline, suggesting that active suppression is possible under this paradigm. In sum, this study demonstrates the flexibility in categorical template formation, hinting at a potential way in which people develop category representations.