Grounding distractor inhibition in action control: distractor-location learning is viewer dependent

Spatial selective attention is typically thought to act as a sensory filter: prioritizing the processing of relevant information at a particular location in space over that of irrelevant information. Research using interactive setups, rather than standard static laboratory setups with seated observers, however, shows that spatial selective attention does not simply facilitate sensory processing at a particular location (where), but also involves the planning of how to (covertly) sample that information from the agent’s perspective. That is, spatial selective attention is constrained by sensorimotor processing and includes an action component. Here we ask whether this extends to the flipside of target selection: whether the suppression of irrelevant distractors is similarly viewer dependent. In three experiments (one preregistered), participants performed an additional-singleton visual search task in which a salient distractor could occur more often at one of the search locations (unknown to the participant). Critically, participants conducted the visual search on a monitor positioned flat on a tabletop so that we could manipulate their standing position. This enabled us to disentangle whether implicit distractor-location learning is anchored in world coordinates or incorporates information as to how one can suppress attentional sampling in space from their viewpoint to prevent distraction. Across all three experiments, we found that implicit distractor-location learning is viewer dependent. These findings show that humans continuously incorporate information about their own position relative to to-be-ignored objects and that, like attentional facilitation, implicit learning to inhibit distractors cannot be abstracted from the agent and is fundamentally grounded in action control.