Unseeing the White Bear: Negative Search Criteria Guide Visual Attention through Top-down Suppression

Abstract

In three spatial cueing experiments, we investigated whether a negative search criterion (i.e., a task-relevant feature that negatively defines the target) can guide visual attention in a top-down manner. Our participants searched for a target defined by a negative feature (e.g., red if the target was a nonred horizontal bar). Before the target, a peripheral singleton cue was shown at the target position (valid condition) or a nontarget position (invalid condition). We found slower reaction times in valid than invalid trials only with singleton cues matching the negative feature. Importantly, we ruled out that participants searched for target-associated features instead of suppressing the negative feature (Experiment 1). Furthermore, we demonstrated that suppression of cues with a negative feature was stronger than mere ignorance of singleton cues with a task-irrelevant feature. Finally, cue-target intervals of 60 ms and 150 ms elicited the same suppression effects for cues matching the negative feature. These findings suggest that the usage of a negative search criterion elicited feature-selective proactive suppression (Experiments 2 and 3). Thus, our results provide first evidence of top-down attentional suppression dependent on current task goals as a strategy operating in parallel to the goal-directed search for target-defining features (Experiment 2).