Working memory load does not interfere with distractor suppression in the additional singleton task

Abstract

Over the last decade, the additional singleton task has been widely used to study visual statistical learning. In this paradigm, participants are instructed to find a target while ignoring a series of distractors. In some trials, a salient singleton distractor is added to the search display, making the task more difficult. However, if the singleton appears more frequently in one particular location of the display, participants eventually learn to suppress attention towards this location. It has been suggested that this type of learning is probably implicit and independent of working memory (WM) resources. To our knowledge, only one study has explored the impact of WM in suppression effect (Gao & Theeuwes, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27, 96–104, 2020). However, there are reasons to suspect that the amount and type of WM load used in that study may have been suboptimal to detect any effects on distractor suppression. The aim of the present study was to explore the impact of WM load on distractor suppression addressing these issues. Contrary to our expectations, our results confirm that this type of learning is indeed highly resilient even to strong manipulations of WM load.