Previous studies in visual attention and oculomotor research showed that a physically salient distractor does not always capture attention or the eyes. Under certain top-down task sets, a salient distractor can be actively suppressed, avoiding capture. Even though previous studies showed that reaching movements are also influenced by salient distractors, it is unclear if and how a mechanism of active suppression of distractors would affect reaching movements. Active suppression might also explain why some studies find reaching movements to curve towards a distractor, while others find reaching movements to curve away. In this study, we varied the top-down task set in two separate experiments by manipulating the certainty about the target location. Participants had to reach for a diamond present among three circles. In Experiments 1 and 3, participants had to search for the reach targets; hence, the target’s location certainty was low. In Experiments 2 and 3, the target’s location was cued before the reach; hence, the target’s location certainty was high. We found that reaches curved towards the physically salient, color singleton, distractor in the search-to-reach task (Experiments 1 and 3), but not in the cued reach task (Experiments 2 and 3). Thus, the saliency of the distractor only attracted reaching movements when the certainty of the target’s location was low. Our findings suggest that the attractiveness of physically salient distractors to reaching movements depends on the top-down task set. The results can be explained by the effect of active attentional suppression on the competition between movement plans.

中文翻译：

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显着干扰因素对到达动作的吸引力取决于任务。

先前对视觉注意力和动眼神经研究的研究表明，物理上显着的干扰物并不总是能吸引注意力或眼睛。在某些自上而下的任务集下，可以主动抑制显着的干扰因素，从而避免捕获。尽管之前的研究表明，伸手动作也会受到显着干扰因素的影响，但目前尚不清楚主动抑制干扰因素的机制是否以及如何影响伸手动作。主动抑制也可以解释为什么一些研究发现伸手动作会向干扰物弯曲，而另一些研究则发现伸手动作会弯曲离开。在这项研究中，我们通过操纵目标位置的确定性，在两个单独的实验中改变了自上而下的任务集。参与者必须从三个圆圈中取出一颗钻石。在实验 1 和 3 中，参与者必须搜索到达目标；因此，目标位置的确定性较低。在实验 2 和 3 中，目标位置在到达之前就已被提示；因此，目标的位置确定性很高。我们发现，在搜索到达任务（实验 1 和 3）中，到达范围向物理显着、颜色单一、干扰物弯曲，但在提示到达任务中则没有（实验 2 和 3）。因此，当目标位置的确定性较低时，干扰物的显着性只会吸引到达运动。我们的研究结果表明，身体上显着的干扰因素对达到动作的吸引力取决于自上而下的任务集。结果可以通过主动注意力抑制对运动计划之间竞争的影响来解释。