The capture debate revisited: Proactive or reactive suppression — that is the question
Theeuwes, J., Manini, G., Garre-Frutos, F., Lupiáñez, J., & van Moorselaar, D.
Visual Cognition
Abstract
A central debate in attention research concerns whether visual selection is primarily driven by stimulus-driven salience or by goal-driven top-down control. According to the stimulus-driven account, salient distractors automatically capture attention before being suppressed, whereas the signal suppression hypothesis proposes proactive prevention of capture. We tested these competing views in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants searched for a rotated T among Ls under conditions inducing either singleton detection or feature search mode, with a salient color distractor present or absent. Distractors slowed search in singleton detection mode but produced a distractor presence benefit when searching in feature search mode. Importantly, in feature search, reaction times increased with target–distractor distance, indicating initial capture at the distractor location followed by serial search. In Experiment 2, using a heterogeneous display typically used to test the signal suppression hypothesis, we again observed a robust distractor presence benefit alongside a clear display size effect, confirming that search was conducted serially. Although standard distance analyses revealed no effect, exploratory analyses accounting for search direction uncovered distance-dependent costs consistent with rapid disengagement. Together, these findings suggest that even under feature-search conditions, salient distractors briefly capture attention before their priority is rapidly reduced. This post-selection reduction, which may reflect either active or passive suppression, allows attention to disengage from the distractor. Thus, the findings challenge strict proactive suppression accounts and support a rapid disengagement account.