Attentional capture is contingent on scene region: Using surface guidance framework to explore attentional mechanisms during search

Abstract

Studies have established that scene context guides attention during visual search, but it is not yet clear how. In this study, we examined how attention is deployed across scenes using an attentional capture paradigm. Using the Surface Guidance Framework (Castelhano & Pereira, 2019), we defined target-relevant and target-irrelevant scene regions for each target object and compared how attentional capture of a suddenly onsetting distractor differs for object and letter searches. We found an enhancement of capture effects when distractors appeared within target-relevant regions, with greater proportions of distractors fixated and greater proportions of saccades made toward the distractor for object searches, but not for letter searches. Thus, attention in the real world can be flexibly and spatially distributed on the basis of contextual information, with the Surface Guidance Framework presenting a powerful tool for exploring attentional guidance in real-world scenes.