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Neural evidence for attentional capture by salient distractors

Nature Human Behaviour (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Salient objects often capture our attention, serving as distractors and hindering our current goals. It remains unclear when and how salient distractors interact with our goals, and our knowledge on the neural mechanisms responsible for attentional capture is limited to a few brain regions recorded from non-human primates. Here we conducted a multivariate analysis on human intracranial signals covering most brain regions and successfully dissociated distractor-specific representations from target-arousal signals in the high-frequency (60–100 Hz) activity. We found that salient distractors were processed rapidly around 220 ms, while target-tuning attention was attenuated simultaneously, supporting initial capture by distractors. Notably, neuronal activity specific to the distractor representation was strongest in the superior and middle temporal gyrus, amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex, while there were smaller contributions from the parietal and frontal cortices. These results provide neural evidence for attentional capture by salient distractors engaging a much larger network than previously appreciated.

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Fig. 1: Stimuli, behavioural results and HF activity.
Fig. 2: Signal reconstruction with the IEM.
Fig. 3: Contribution to salient distractor processing of different brain regions.
Fig. 4: Comparisons between different brain regions when reacting to salient distractors.

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Data availability

As the iEEG data are being used in ongoing studies, we are unable to share them at this time. However, should researchers express interest in replicating our study, we will share the derived iEEG data upon request.

Code availability

The code we used can be accessed through https://github.com/wangbenchi/Shared_data (ref. 78).

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Science and Technology Innovation 2030 Major Program (grant no. 2022ZD0204802 to B.W.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 32000738 to B.W.) and the Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen (grant no. SZSM202003006 to X.M.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Rongqi Lin, Xianghong Meng, Fuyong Chen.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, South China Normal University, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China

    Rongqi Lin & Benchi Wang

  2. Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China

    Rongqi Lin & Benchi Wang

  3. Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China

    Rongqi Lin & Benchi Wang

  4. Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China

    Rongqi Lin & Benchi Wang

  5. Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China

    Rongqi Lin & Xinyu Li

  6. Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Rongqi Lin & Jan Theeuwes

  7. Department of Neurosurgery, Shenzhen University General Hospital, Shenzhen, China

    Xianghong Meng

  8. Department of Neurosurgery, University of Hongkong Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, China

    Fuyong Chen

  9. Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Ole Jensen

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Contributions

R.L., X.M., F.C., X.L. and B.W. designed the experiment. R.L., X.M. and F.C. collected the data. R.L. and B.W. analysed the data. R.L., O.J., J.T. and B.W. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Benchi Wang.

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Lin, R., Meng, X., Chen, F. et al. Neural evidence for attentional capture by salient distractors. Nat Hum Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01852-5

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