title: Hold the future, let the past go: attention prefers the features of future targets.
abstract: Previous studies have shown that attention can be captured by task-irrelevant distractors under the guidance of attentional control settings. However, it is unknown whether people can establish an attentional control setting (ACS) for a sequence of distinct events. The present study tested that question by asking observers to expect a sequence of two colored targets in a specific order. The results show that irrelevant distractors that matched either the color of the first expected target or that of the second target captured attention. Thus observers are unable to temporarily suppress the color of the future target in their ACS. However, the temporal order of targets is still useful for guiding attention: Observers were able to abandon the color of the first target and maintain an ACS for the second one as long as there was a sufficient time interval between the two targets.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. Electronic address: duf@psych.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Du
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Kan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
authors.forename: Richard A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Abrams
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003116:Color; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attentional capture; Attentional control setting; Contingent capture; Spatial blink; Temporal order