Shivang (Shibu) Shelat

Presentation Title

Experience-dependent capture prevents attentional lapses in real time

Abstract

Failures of sustained attention are pervasive in everyday life. In the lab, such lapses can be tracked unobtrusively using response times (RTs) in monotonous continuous performance tasks that require frequent responding and, as such, place heavy demands on response inhibition processes. Here, we used an RT-based real-time triggering procedure to examine how attentional lapses interact with experience-dependent capture. We tested two accounts: lapses may impair suppression of distracting stimuli (capture suppression), or distractors may re-engage attention and improve performance (perceptual recoupling). Participants completed a training task that linked a specific color to reward, followed by a sustained attention task with visual search trials. On rare trials, training-relevant colors appeared as distractors during lapsing and focused states. Results supported the perceptual recoupling account: reward- and novelty-related distractors improved response inhibition accuracy, though reward effects declined over time. For participants with strong reward-color associations, reward-linked distractors most effectively reduced errors during lapses. This study shows the potential of using experience-dependent capture to mitigate performance decrements associated with lapsing attention.