Allocating attention to distractor locations is based on top-down expectations

Abstract

Failures of selective attention may be explained by the attentional white bear (AWB) hypothesis maintaining that prior knowledge of distractor location causes attentional allocation to it. The AWB is demonstrated by embedding infrequent trials of two simultaneous dots among flanker trials. The dot at the expected distractor location is perceived as appearing before the dot at the expected empty location, indicating attentional allocation to expected distractor locations. A major requirement of the AWB hypothesis is that it occurs in a top-down manner due to expectations. We devised a variation of the original AWB experiment, which enabled us to differentiate between the top-down and bottom-up contributions. The results show that top-down expectancies, which are a critical part of the AWB characterization, occur independently of bottom-up contributions.

Keywords:

• Attentional white bear
• Visual attention
• Selective attention
• Flanker task
• Distractor processing

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Grant 06 10714321 from the Israel Science Foundation. Part of this research was presented at the Psychonomics 52nd Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, November, 2011.