Inhibition in selective attention

Abstract

Our ability to focus on goal-relevant aspects of the environment is critically dependent on our ability to ignore or inhibit distracting information. One perspective is that distractor inhibition is under similar voluntary control as attentional facilitation of target processing. However, a rapidly growing body of research shows that distractor inhibition often relies on prior experience with the distracting information or other mechanisms that need not rely on active representation in working memory. Yet, how and when these different forms of inhibition are neurally implemented remains largely unclear. Here, we review findings from recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies to address this outstanding question. We specifically explore how experience with distracting information may change the processing of that information in the context of current predictive processing views of perception: by modulating a distractor's representation already in anticipation of the distractor, or after integration of top-down and bottom-up sensory signals. We also outline directions for future research necessary to enhance our understanding of how the brain filters out distracting information.

Keywords: EEG; attention; brain; inhibition; predictive processing.

Figure 1

Three different scenarios of how expectations may modulate the representation of distracting information in anticipation of new sensory input (i.e., anticipatory distractor tuning). The tuning curves reflect selectivity of population‐level neural activity to a particular feature (e.g., location or orientation). Expectations about upcoming distractor information may result in anticipatory tuning (A) toward the expected distractor feature or (B) away from the expected distractor feature resulting in negative anticipatory distractor tuning. The subplots of figure B illustrate different scenarios that may all produce negative tuning slopes: as consequence of reduced anticipatory tuning to the distractor (panel B1), of shifting anticipatory tuning away from the expected distractor to nondistractor features/locations (panel B2), or a combination of both (panel B3). The horizontal blue line in each subplot indicates the baseline situation of no expectation. (C) Alternatively, distractor expectations may not be evident in anticipatory neural activity (firing) patterns.

Figure 2

Summary of results of our recent EEG study76 examining how distractor learning influences distractor processing. (A) Slopes of channel tuning functions (CTFs) tuned to the target location (top; green) and the distractor location (bottom; red), estimated based on total alpha power. While target location learning, induced by keeping the target location fixed across a block of trials, resulted in anticipatory tuning toward the expected target location, no such anticipatory tuning was observed after distractor location repetition. That is, no evidence was obtained for a change in anticipatory tuning to the distractor location in the last versus the first trials of the block. (B) Difference waveforms (contralateral–ipsilateral) revealing the N2pc and Pd elicited by distractors in the first trial and in the last trial of a block in which either the location of the distractor was repeated or varied across trials. As the figure shows, the Pd elicited by expected distractors (last trial distractor‐repeat condition) was greatly reduced in amplitude compared to distractors that occurred at a nonpredictable location (e.g., last trial variable condition). Double‐colored thick lines in all plots indicate time points with a significant difference between the respective conditions after cluster correction (P < 0.05).