Regularity and stimulus salience jointly but independently shape attentional prioritization
Date:
Li, S., Jiang, Y., & Wang, Y*. (2025). Regularity and stimulus salience jointly but independently shape attentional prioritization. the 47th European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP2025), Mainz, Germany
Abstract
Recent studies suggest that selection history (e.g., learned regularities) guides attention allocation alongside bottom-up and top-down factors, forming a tripartite framework of selective attention. However, the interactions among these factors remain largely unclear. The current study investigates the interplay between history-driven (regularity-guided) attention and stimulus-driven (salience-guided) attention. Using a visual search task, Experiment 1 revealed that both temporally structured shape sequences and salient spatial cues separately biased attention, enhancing target detection over random sequences or non-salient cues. Critically, these effects were amplified when the two factors aligned spatially (cooperation) but weakened when misaligned (competition), with salience-guided attention overriding regularity-guided attention during conflicts but not vice versa, demonstrating a mutual yet asymmetric influence. Experiment 2 utilized a modified dot-probe task with multi-level salience cues to further examine the interaction between regularity and salience. Results showed no significant interaction, and the attention effects in the cooperation/competition condition corresponded to the linear combination (sum/difference) of individual effects across salience levels. These findings suggest that statistical regularity and physical salience jointly but independently guide attentional prioritization in an additive manner, providing novel insights into how selection history and present information work in tandem to shape attentional priority computation.
Citation:
Li, S., Jiang, Y., & Wang, Y*. (2025). Regularity and stimulus salience jointly but independently shape attentional prioritization. the 47th European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP2025), Mainz, Germany