The influence of feature-based statistical regularity of singletons on the attentional suppression effect

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2021.00555

Abstract

Abstract:

Using the variant of the classical additional singleton paradigm, the influence of feature-based statistical regularities of singletons on the attentional suppression effect was investigated. The results showed that: (1) when participants were forced to adopt the feature search mode, the response times were significantly faster in all the conditions with singleton than in the condition without singleton; (2) compared with the condition with a low-probability color singleton, the response times were significantly faster in the trials of high-probability color singleton presented. The results show that the influence of statistical regularities on attention is not limited to the stimulus location, and the feature-based statistical regularities also affect the magnitude of the attentional suppression effect.

Key words: additional singleton paradigm, feature search strategy, statistical regularities, attentional suppression effect

ZHANG Fan, WANG Aijun, ZHANG Ming. (2021). The influence of feature-based statistical regularity of singletons on the attentional suppression effect. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 53(6), 555-564.

Figures/Tables 3

Figure 1. The procedure of Experiment 1. In the formal experiment, the participants were required to search for a specific shape of the target (diamond or circle), and determine the direction of the inner line segment both quickly and accurately. When the search array was presented, half of the trials had the same color of all stimuli (i.e., no color singleton was presented), and the other half had a color singleton presented (dotted circle marked).

Figure 2. Results from Experiment 1. (A) Manual response time as a function of singleton presence of Experiment 1. (B) Manual response time as a function of singleton presence in the first quarter of trials and the last quarter of trials.
Note. ***p < 0.001, n.s. p > 0.05

Figure 3. Results from Experiment 2. (A) Manual response time as a function of trial type. (B) Results of response times in the first quarter of trials and the last quarter of trials.
Note. ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05, n.s. p > 0.05

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