Acta Psychologica 193 (2019) 73–79

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Acta Psychologica
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/actpsy

Cue frequency modulates cuing effect either in the presence or in the T

absence of distractors
⁎
Yosun Yoon, Shinyoung Jung, Kyengsun Jeoung, Se-Jin Ha, Dahye Kim, Suk Won Han
Department of Psychology, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: A novel, salient stimulus, even though it is not related to a concurrent goal-directed behavior, powerfully
Involuntary attention captures people's attention. While this stimulus-driven attentional capture has long been presumed to take place
Attentional cuing in a purely bottom-up or automatic manner, growing evidence shows that a number of top-down factors
Top-down modulation modulate the stimulus-driven capture of attention. Recent studies pointed out the cue presentation frequency is
such a factor; the capture of attention by a salient, task-irrelevant cue increased as its presentation frequency
decreased. Expanding these studies, we investigated how the modulatory effect of the cue frequency differs
depending on the level of competition between multiple stimuli. As results, we found that an infrequently
presented cue exerted stronger capture effect than a frequently presented cue, either in the presence or in the
absence of distractors. Importantly, in the absence of distractors, performance difference elicited by the fre-
quently present cue was due to non-attentional sensory artifacts or decisional noise. However, the same frequent
cue evoked genuine attentional effect when multiple distractors accompanied the target, evoking stimulus-
driven competition. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the effect of attentional cue is modulated by
cue frequency, and this modulation is also affected by stimulus-driven competition.

1. Introduction
Selective attention, by which a subset of sensory inputs is prioritized
or processed in finer detail at the expense of others, plays a central role
in human information processing. Regarding how attention is deployed,
two types of attention are distinguished: top-down and bottom-up at-
tention (Corbetta & Shulman, 2002). While it is clear that top-down
attention is an effortful, voluntary, and strategic process, the specific
nature of bottom-up attention is debatable. Specifically, some re-
searchers argue that bottom-up attention is a strictly automatic process,
such that the capture of attention by salient stimuli is irresistible and
encapsulated from goal-directed processes. By contrast, other studies
showed that only stimuli relevant to the concurrent goal-directed set-
tings capture attention.
While this debate is still raging, a recent study reported that a
certain class of stimuli evokes attentional orienting that is cognitively
impenetrable (Folk & Remington, 2015, but see Schönhammer &
Kerzel, 2018). In this study, the abrupt onset of a stimulus, which was a
rare event in the experimental session, strongly captured attention. By
contrast, when the onset of the stimulus became frequent, no capture
was found. Importantly, while the target stimulus was defined as a red
letter, the infrequent cue stimulus was a white dot. In this case, the cue
is entirely irrelevant to the top-down task set (see Experiment 1 and 3 of
Folk & Remington, 2015). Based on these findings, Folk and Remington
argued that the abrupt onset of a stimulus, when its frequency is low,
captures attention, regardless of participants' task strategy or top-down
attentional set.
Expanding the study by Folk and colleagues, we investigated whe-
ther the effect of cue frequency on the attentional cuing effect differs,
depending on the presence/absence of distractors. A large body of
studies showed that the attentional effect becomes more pronounced
when multiple distractors accompanied the target stimulus, evoking
stimulus-driven competition than when no distractors were presented
(Giordano, McElree, & Carrasco, 2009; Han & Marois, 2014a;
Herrmann, Montaser-Kouhsari, Carrasco, & Heeger, 2010; Liu, Pestilli,
& Carrasco, 2005; Pestilli & Carrasco, 2005; Störmer, McDonald, &
Hillyard, 2009; White, Lunau, & Carrasco, 2014). Furthermore, recent
studies showed that, while the effect of bottom-up attentional cue in the
absence of distractors is modulated by task demands or trial context,
the attentional effect under distractor interference was insensitive to
such factors (Bae, Jung, & Han, 2018; Han & Marois, 2014a). However,
it remains unknown whether attentional effect under distractor inter-
ference is also immune to the cue frequency. Notably, in experiments by
Folk and colleagues, several distractors were presented with the target.

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: suk.w.han@cnu.ac.kr (S.W. Han).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.12.008
Received 28 May 2018; Received in revised form 8 December 2018; Accepted 14 December 2018
Available online 28 December 2018
0001-6918/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Y. Yoon et al.
However, the level of competition might have been modest because the
target stimulus was associated with a specific, distinct color. Searching
for such a color-defined target is known to take place in a highly effi-
cient manner (Han, 2017; Huang, 2015).
To predict how the cue frequency and the presence/absence of
distractors affect the cuing effect, one should consider that attention is
not homogenous, but rather a multi-faced mechanism. On one hand,
attention enhances processing of a single stimulus by allocating a lim-
ited amount of processing resources (Bae et al., 2018; Han & Marois,
2014a; Prinzmetal, McCool, & Park, 2005). On the other hand, atten-
tion affects the processing of a stimulus via resolution of stimulus-
driven competition. When multiple stimuli are presented, they compete
to be represented in the visual system (Desimone & Duncan, 1995). This
competition is often biased toward a stimulus capturing attention (Beck
& Kastner, 2005). Importantly, such biasing of competition by attention
does not recruit allocation of processing resources (Bae et al., 2018).
Based upon the extant evidence, we predict that, in the absence of
distractors, the cuing effect should depend on the cue frequency, as
shown by Folk and Remington (2015). As discussed above, the cuing
effect in a single-stimulus display reflects that processing resources are
allocated to the cued location (Bae et al., 2018; Han & Marois, 2014a;
Prinzmetal et al., 2005). When a salient and rare cue is presented, at-
tention is likely to be captured by the cue and processing resources
should be recruited to handle the cue stimulus (Han & Marois, 2014a,
2014b; Sokolov, 1963). This is so, even though the cue is irrelevant to
the concurrent task goal. However, when such a cue is frequently
presented, the likelihood that the cue captures attention should dras-
tically decrease as the orienting response to the salient cue habituates
with time (Han & Marois, 2014b; Sokolov, 1963). In this case, there is
no reason why processing resources are allocated to the cued location.
By contrast, under a high level of competition, attention primarily ex-
erts the effect of biasing the competition, which does not necessarily
need the allocation of limited processing resources (Bae et al., 2018;
Han & Marois, 2014a). In this case, both frequently- and infrequently
presented cues might play roles in biasing competition, such that the
cuing effect might not be so sensitive to the cue frequency.
To test these predictions, in Experiment 1, a salient green cue was
followed by a target stimulus. For a group of participants (cue-frequent
group), the cue was presented in the majority of the trials, while in the
small number of remaining trials, no cue was presented. For the other
(cue-infrequent group), the cue appeared only in 25% of all trials. In
Experiment 2, the target stimulus was surrounded by multiple dis-
tractors, which were highly similar to the target stimulus. It is im-
portant to note that we included four types of trials in each experiment:
valid, neutral, invalid, and no-cue trials. In the valid trials, the cue and
target location matched, whereas in the invalid trials, the cue was
presented at a location where the target would not be present. In the
neutral trials, all the potential target locations were cued. In the no-cue
trials, no cue was presented. When the cue captures attention, task
performance should be best for the valid trials and worst for the invalid
trials, with intermediate levels of performance for the neutral and no-
cue trials.
It should be noted that while many cuing studies do not include the
neutral trials as baseline, we intended to include the neutral trials for
the following reason. Previous studies have shown that performance
differences between the valid and invalid trials should not be solely
attributed to the fact that the cue captured attention (Prinzmetal et al.,
2005; Remington, Folk, & McLean, 2001). Given the stimulus setting of
the cuing paradigm, in the valid trials, the cue and target are presented
at only a single location, such that it is as if there is only a single object
in the display, whereas in the invalid trials, it is as if there are two
objects in the display. Hence, the cuing effect might arise in either case,
because the attention was shifted to the cue, or because the process of
deciding where to pay attention was simply delayed in the invalid trials
(Remington et al., 2001).
Including the neutral trials allows us to clarify whether performance
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Acta Psychologica 193 (2019) 73–79
difference between the valid and invalid trials is due to attentional
capture by the cue or non-attentional, decisional effect; if performance
is better for the valid trials than for the neutral trials, and the invalid
trials yield worse performance than the neutral trials, we can claim that
the observed cuing effect truly reflects attentional orienting by the cue.
Otherwise, one might suspect whether performance difference across
cue types is associated with cue-driven attentional orienting or other
confounds, such as the decisional effect or sensory interactions between
the cue and target stimulus. For example, if the valid trials yielded
better performance than the invalid trials, but performance for the
neutral trials was worse than the invalid trials, this might be because
the cue stimulus simply delayed the decisional process.
2. Experiment 1
2.1. Methods
2.1.1. Participants
37 adults (12 males, aged 18–25 years) with normal or corrected-to-
normal vision participated for course credits. The institutional review
board of Chungnam National University approved the experimental
protocol, and informed consent was obtained from each participant.
2.1.2. Stimuli and apparatus
The experiment was programmed and run using Psychopy (Peirce,
2007). Stimuli were presented on a 20-in. LCD monitor with a gray
background. The monitor resolution was set to 1600 × 900 pixels. The
viewing distance was about 57 cm. The cue stimulus was a green-out-
lined square (3° × 3°) and the target was a black letter F or H
(0.6° × 1°). The cue and target were presented in one of four locations
evenly spaced on an imaginary circle, whose radius was 6.5°. All of
these parameters were adopted from one of our previous studies (Han &
Marois, 2014a).
2.1.3. Design and procedure
The task was to identify whether the presented target stimulus is F
or H by pressing keyboard buttons (Fig. 1). A fixation dot was displayed
at the center of the screen for 500 ms, followed by the 120 ms pre-
sentation of an attentional cue, a green-outlined square. The green-
outline cue remained until the target disappeared. This was to prevent
the transient offset of the cue forward-mask of the target. Then, the
target letter, F or H, was presented for 100 ms. There were three types
of cues; valid, neutral, and invalid cues. In the valid trials, the cue and
target location matched. In the invalid trials, the cue was presented at a
location where the target would not be present. In the neutral trials, all
the potential target locations were cued, and in the no-cue trials, no cue
was presented.
Participants were randomly assigned to two groups (cue-frequent
and cue-infrequent groups). For the cue-frequent group (N = 18), the
attentional cues (valid, neutral, and invalid) were presented in 83% of
all trials, while in the rest, no cue was presented. For the cue-infrequent
group (N = 19), the probability of cue presentation was 25%. In both
groups, there were 8 experimental blocks, each of which contained 96
trials. The ratio of valid and invalid trials was kept to 1:3, rendering the
attentional cue non-informative of the target location. Specifically, for
the cue-frequent group, the proportions of the valid, neutral, invalid,
and no-cue trials were 16.7%, 16.7%, 50%, and 16.7%, respectively.
For the cue-infrequent group, the proportions of the valid, neutral, in-
valid, and no-cue trials were 4.17%, 8.33%, 12.5%, and 75%, respec-
tively.
Taken together, the experiment consisted of a 2 × 4 factorial de-
sign, with cue frequency (cue-frequent group and cue-infrequent group)
as a between-subject factor and cue type (valid, neutral, invalid, and
no-cue) as a within-subject factor. To analyze data, a mixed two-way
ANOVA was applied. When significant main effects and interactions
were found, pairwise t-tests were run. Statistical thresholds for these t-
Y. Yoon et al. Acta Psychologica 193 (2019) 73–79

Fig. 1. Trial design and procedure of Experiment 1.

tests were corrected for multiple comparisons, using FDR (false dis-
covery rate) procedure.

2.2. Results and discussion

The mean accuracy of the task was 92.4%. A mixed two-way

ANOVA with cue frequency (cue-frequent group vs. cue-infrequent
group) as a between-subject factor and cue type (valid, neutral, invalid,
vs. no-cue) as a within-subject factor was applied to RT and accuracy
data. While the RT analysis showed that there was a significant main
effect of cue type, F(3, 105) = 11.08, p < .0001, η2G = 0.044, the
analysis of accuracy data revealed no main effect of cue type, F
(3,105) = 1.83, p < .15, η2G = 0.011. For both the RT and accuracy
data, there was no main effect of cue frequency. While the analysis of
RT data revealed a significant interaction between cue type and cue Fig. 3. Adjusted Reaction time (ms) data from Experiment 1. Error bars re-
present standard errors of the mean.
frequency, F(3,105) = 6.16, p < .001, η2G = 0.025. the analysis of ac-
curacy data revealed a marginally significant interaction between the
two factors, F(3, 105) = 2.41, p = .07, η2G = 0.014 (Fig. 2). Given the adjusted RT on accuracy by dividing the former by the latter (Inverse
marginally significant interaction on accuracy, to assess behavioral Efficiency Score = RT / accuracy; Graham et al., 2006; Han & Marois,
performance in an integrative way for combining RT and accuracy, we 2013; Townsend & Ashby, 1983). When the same analysis was applied

Fig. 2. Reaction time (ms) and Accuracy (%) data from Experiment 1. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.

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Y. Yoon et al.
to the adjusted RT data (Fig. 3), similar patterns of results were found;
there was no main effect of cue frequency, p < .38. The main effect of
cue type was significant, F(3, 105) = 11.58, p < .0001, η2G = 0.054,
and the interaction between cue frequency and cue type was also sig-
nificant, F(3, 105) = 7.31, p < .0001, η2G = 0.035, indicating that cue
frequency affected the effect of the salient, but task-irrelevant cue.
To further clarify how cue frequency modulated the effect of the
salient cue, we separately examined the adjusted RT data from the cue-
frequent and –infrequent groups. For the cue-frequent group, pairwise t-
tests revealed that mean RT for the valid trials was significantly shorter
than for the invalid trials, t(17) = 2.52, p < .05. This indicates that
attention was allocated to the cued location.
Besides this basic cuing effect, there are several notable findings.
First, while a significant difference between the valid and invalid trial
was observed, we found no evidence that the cue facilitated behavioral
performance, compared to when no cue was presented, p > .9.
Another notable finding is that the neutral trial yielded the longest RT;
indeed, the mean RT for the neutral trial was significantly longer than
that for the invalid trials, t(17) = 2.42, p < .05. If attention was cap-
tured by the cue, why did the neutral trial yield longer RT than the
invalid trial? According to previous studies, attentional capture by the
cue is not solely responsible for performance differences between the
valid and invalid trials. Specifically, in the valid trials, it is as if there is
only a single stimulus in the display, whereas in the invalid trials, it is as
if two stimuli are presented. In this case, responses for the invalid trials
are slowed, because the process of deciding where to pay attention is
delayed compared to the valid trials (Remington et al., 2001). This
delayed decisional account can accommodate the present results that
the neutral trials yielded the longest RT; in the neutral trials of the
present experiment, it was as if there were four stimuli presented, de-
laying the decisional process more severely than in other trials. Cer-
tainly, one might argue that this difference in stimulus setting (one
thing vs. two things) is also driven by attentional factor, but this is
clearly different from the account that the observed performance dif-
ference was because attention was initially oriented toward the cued
location (Prinzmetal et al., 2005).
In summation, we found significant cuing effect from the data of the
cue-frequent group. However, the observed cuing effect might arise
because attention was captured by the cue or the cue stimulus delayed
the decision of where to pay attention. Certainly, there may be other
explanations for the current pattern of results (i.e., low-level sensory
interaction between the cue and target stimuli) and we do not draw any
strong conclusion regarding this issue. However, what is clear is that
even when the frequently-presented cue had captured attention, the
magnitude of such capture was modest and other non-attentional fac-
tors seemed to contribute to the observed cuing effect.
For the cue-infrequent group, pairwise t-tests revealed that RT for
the valid trials were significantly shorter than for invalid trials, t
(18) = 4.48, p < .005. Importantly, this difference was significantly
larger than that for the cue-frequent group, t(35) = 2.72, p < .05
(independent sample t-test), indicating that the infrequently presented
cue exerted a stronger attentional effect than the frequently presented
cue (see also Folk & Remington, 2015). Another important finding is
that, unlike the results from the cue-frequent group, the valid trials
yielded significantly faster RT than the no-cue trials, t(18) = 3.18,
p < .05. Finally, the invalid trials yielded the longest RT, p's < .01.
This is a classic pattern of results that indicate that attention was or-
iented toward the cued location. As in the cue-frequent group, the cue
stimulus might have delayed the decision process regarding where at-
tention should be shifted first. However, despite this, the infrequently
presented cue powerfully captured attention, yielding shorter RT for the
valid trials and longer RT for the invalid trials than the neutral trials.
Unlike the results of the cue-frequent group, the pattern of the cue-
infrequent group data unequivocally shows that the cue stimulus cap-
tured and oriented attention to the cued location.
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Acta Psychologica 193 (2019) 73–79
3. Experiment 2
Experiment 2 was conducted to investigate whether cue frequency
has influence on the effect of the involuntary attentional cue under
distractor interference.
3.1. Methods
3.1.1. Participants
Forty five adults (21 males, aged 18–25 years) with normal or cor-
rected-to-normal vision participated for course credits. They were
randomly assigned to the cue-frequent (N = 24) and cue-infrequent
(N = 21) groups. The institutional review board of Chungnam National
University approved the experimental protocol, and informed consent
was obtained from each participant.
3.1.2. Stimuli and apparatus
All stimuli and apparatus were identical to those of Experiment 1,
except that three distractor letters accompanied the target. Distractors
were randomly selected letters among ‘B’, ‘K’, ‘S’, ‘R’, ‘T’, ‘G’, ‘V’, and ‘P’.
3.1.3. Design and procedure
All the details of design and procedure were identical to those of
Experiment 1, except that the target was presented with three distractor
letters (Fig. 4).
3.2. Results and discussion
The mean accuracy of the task was 92.9%. A mixed two-way
ANOVA with cue frequency (cue-frequent group vs. cue-infrequent
group) as a between-subject factor and cue type (valid, neutral, invalid,
and no-cue) as a within-subject factor was applied to RT and accuracy
data. The ANOVAs on the RT data showed a significant main effect of
cue type, F(3, 129) = 33.48, p < .0001, η2G = 0.104. The analysis of
accuracy data also revealed a significant main effect of cue type, F(3,
129) = 6.049, p < .005, η2G = 0.034. For both the RT and accuracy
data, there was no main effect of cue frequency, p > .16 (Fig. 5). To be
consistent with Experiment 1, we also adjusted RT data on accuracy
(Inverse Efficiency Score = RT / accuracy) and the same analysis was
run on this adjusted RT data. In line with the RT analysis, the main
effect of cue type was significant, F(3, 129) = 37.75, p < .0001,
η2G = 0.118, with no main effect of cue frequency, p > .14. The in-
teraction between cue frequency and cue type was significant, F(3,
129) = 4.14, p < .05, η2G = 0.0145, indicating that cue frequency af-
fected the cuing effect, as in Experiment 1.
However, pairwise t-tests on the data from Experiment 2 revealed a
different pattern of results from that of Experiment 1 (shown in Fig. 6).
For the cue-frequent group, adjusted RT difference between the valid
and neutral trials was significant, t(23) = 4.43, p < .05, with shorter
RT for the valid than for the neutral trials. The invalid trials yielded a
significantly longer RT than the neutral trials, t(23) = 4.35, p < .005.
Importantly, the responses for the valid trials were significantly faster
than those for the no-cue trials, t(23) = 4.02, p < .005. This is a pat-
tern of classic cuing effect, driven by the fact that the cue captured and
oriented attention toward the cued location (Egeth & Yantis, 1997; Han
& Marois, 2014a; Ignashchenkova, Dicke, Haarmeier, & Thier, 2004;
Leonard & Egeth, 2008; Yantis & Jonides, 1990).
For the cue-infrequent group, there was a significant difference
between the valid and neutral trials, t(20) = 4.35, p < .005. The dif-
ference between the valid and no-cue trials was also significant, t
(20) = 2.99, p < .005. This is a consistent pattern with the result of
cue-infrequent group in Experiment 1 and the cue-frequent group data
in Experiment 2. Importantly, while both the frequent and infrequent
group data showed a similar pattern of results that attention was or-
iented toward the cued location, the significant interaction between
cue-frequency and cue type indicates that the magnitude of the cuing
Y. Yoon et al. Acta Psychologica 193 (2019) 73–79

Fig. 4. Trial design and procedure of Experiment 2.

effect was more pronounced when the cue was infrequently presented
than it was frequently presented.
Having found that the cue presentation frequency affected the
magnitude of cuing effect not only when only the target was presented,
but also when the target was accompanied by distractors, we examined
whether the modulatory effect of the cue presentation frequency differs
depending on the presence/absence of distractors. To do so, we ran
three-way interaction analyses in two different ways. First, we ran a
three-way mixed ANOVA with Experiment (Exp. 1 vs. Exp. 2) and cue
frequency as between subject factors, with cue type (only valid and
invalid trials) as a within subject factor. This analysis revealed that
there was no significant three-way interaction, F = 0.34, p = .56, in-
dicating that the modulatory effect of cue frequency on cuing effect was
not affected by distractor interference.
Fig. 6. Adjusted Reaction time (ms) data from Experiment 2. Error bars re-
In the second three-way interaction analysis, data from all the trial
present standard errors of the mean.
types, including the no-cue and neutral trials, were used. As emphasized
in the introduction, the neutral trials were added since the typical
cueing effect alone, which is defined as differences in RTs between valid 234) = 4.02, p < .05, suggesting that the modulatory effect of the cue
and invalid trials, would not be enough to investigate whether the presentation frequency on cuing effect is affected by the presence/ab-
observed cuing effect truly reflects attentional orienting by the cue or it sence of stimulus-driven competition. Specifically, the effect size of the
contains other confounds, such as decisional effect or sensory artifacts. interaction between cue type and cue frequency was found to be greater
This analysis revealed a significant three-way interaction, F (3, for Experiment 1 (η2G = 0.036) than for Experiment 2 (η2G = 0.014).

Fig. 5. Reaction time (ms) and Accuracy (%) data from Experiment 2. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.

77
Y. Yoon et al.
These results suggest that cue frequency plays greater role in mod-
ulating cuing effect when distractors accompanies the target than when
only the target is presented.
4. General discussion
The present study investigated how cue frequency modulates cuing
effect either in the presence or in the absence of distractors. Under
distractor interference, the typical patterns of cuing effect were driven
by both frequently- and infrequently-presented cue, such that the cues
elicited shorter RTs for the valid trials and longer RTs for the invalid
trials than the neutral trials. By contrast, when the target was presented
by itself, the different cuing patterns were observed between frequent
and infrequent group. Specifically, in the frequently-presented cue
condition, the cue elicited the typical cuing effect, where participant's
performances are faster on valid trials than invalid trials; indeed, the
valid trials yielded better performance than the invalid trials. However,
the neutral trials, in which all possible target locations were cued,
yielded the worst level of performance. We interpreted these results
that the frequently presented cue only modestly captured attention. At
the same time, the cue stimuli seemed to delay the decisional process of
where to pay attention first (Remington et al., 2001). We also admit
that this is not the only explanation for the present results. As an
anonymous reviewer pointed out, the presentation of cue stimuli in all
possible target locations might introduce some sensory artifacts. How-
ever, despite all these, the infrequently presented cue elicited a very
different pattern of results under the exactly same stimulus setting;
when the cue frequency was low, the performance level of the neutral
trials was intermediate between the valid and invalid trials. This is an
unequivocal pattern of results that attention was captured by the cue.
To account for the present findings in an integrative way, we sug-
gest to consider that attention is a multi-faced mechanism. Specifically,
there are several means by which attention affects visual processing.
First, attention enhances target processing via the allocation of limited
resources to the stimulus (Cameron, Tai, & Carrasco, 2002; Carrasco,
Penpeci-Talgar, & Eckstein, 2000; Pestilli & Carrasco, 2005; Pestilli,
Viera, & Carrasco, 2007; Yeshurun & Carrasco, 1999). When a novel,
salient stimulus appears, due to its potential behavioral significance,
processing resources would be allocated to the salient stimulus. We
suggest that this is the underlying mechanism for the finding that the
infrequent, salient cue captured and oriented attention toward the cued
location. However, when the cue was frequently presented, its novelty
and saliency drastically decreased (Sokolov, 1963). In this case, limited
resources would not be allocated to the cued location. This would be
why the frequent cue did not elicit so strong attentional effect as the
infrequent cue did.
Another important role of attention is related to the resolution of
competition between multiple stimuli. According to the biased com-
petition theory, when multiple stimuli are simultaneously presented,
these compete against each other to be represented in the visual system
(Beck & Kastner, 2005). If attention is oriented toward one of these
stimuli in a bottom-up manner, the attended stimulus wins the com-
petition. According to this account, in our Experiment 2, the frequently
presented cue, even though it does not induce resource allocation to the
cued location, might have biased competition toward the cued stimulus.
Certainly, when the cue was infrequently presented in the presence of
distractors, both the allocation of resources and the resolution of
competition should take place, yielding robust cuing effect.
The final point to be noted is that under the present experimental
setting, participants might have differential expectations and strategies
for the distractor-absent and -present trials. It remains unknown how
these differences affect the modulatory effect of cue frequency. As an
anonymous reviewer suggested, the interaction between distractor in-
terference and cue frequency might differ when participants were not
informed of whether distractors would be presented or not. While this is
a valid point, we intended to have separate groups of participants in the
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Acta Psychologica 193 (2019) 73–79
distractor-absent and -present experiments. This is because in our pre-
vious study, when the distractor-absent and -present trials were ran-
domly intermixed within an experimental block, the attentional effect
in the absence of distractors tended to decrease (Han & Marois, 2014a).
Hence, it is possible that the modulatory effect of cue frequency in such
cases might not be so strong as in the present experiment.
To conclude, we found that the cue presentation frequency sig-
nificantly modulated the cuing effect either in the presence or in the
absence of distractors. Importantly, while the magnitude of modulatory
effect of cue frequency on cuing effect seems to be similar between
when distractors were presented and when only the target is presented,
the underlying mechanisms seem to differ. Further research should be
fruitful to clarify how.
Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Yuhwa Han for advices on statistical analyses.
This work was supported by National Research Foundation grant
supported by the Korean government (NRF-2017S1A5A8018781) and
the Chungnam National University research grant.
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