Hyderabad study explains how the brain focuses by tuning out noise in a distracted environment

Suppressing distractions

This research, published in the journal Attention, Perception & Psychophysics of the Psychonomic Society USA, underscores the power of clear instructions and consistent expectations in helping us focus.

The study identified spatially-guided distractor suppression — defined as the deliberate control or modulation of the brain’s ability to ignore or suppress distracting elements based on their spatial locations — as a goal-driven process.

Simplifying this, the researchers said in a statement, “Imagine a busy street. Our brain can selectively suppress the flashing lights and honking horns, allowing us to focus on crossing safely. This remarkable ability is goal-driven, meaning we can choose where to ‘tune out’ distractions.”

“However, this superpower has limitations. Reliable clues about where distractions are most likely are key. If these clues are weak or change frequently, our brain switches to a different strategy, like ignoring familiar sounds,” they added.

The study used a feature search task and a salient distractor, and the results showed that participants were able to suppress distractors based on their knowledge of expected salient distractor locations.

Feature search is a visual search process that focuses on identifying a previously requested target amongst distractors that differ from the target by a unique visual feature such as colour, shape, orientation, or size.

An example of a feature search task is asking a participant to identify a white square (target) surrounded by black squares (distractors). In this type of visual search, the distractors are characterised by the same visual features.

The research provides evidence for the role of spatial filtering in attention capture by spatial cues, and contributes to understanding attentional mechanisms that aid in distinguishing targets from distractors.

“Think of attention as a limited resource. Using this control takes brainpower, and if the task isn’t important enough, our brain might decide to conserve that energy for other things. But the good news is that we can adapt! If the task changes over time, our brain can gradually adjust its ‘distraction filter’ to match the new situation,” the researchers explained.

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The findings

The study looked at how our brain focuses on important things and ignores distractions. They found that our ability to ignore distractions is better when the distracting elements appear in predictable locations.

However, if the distracting elements show up randomly or where our focus lies, then the brain’s ability to suppress it is diminished. “When the target appeared at filtered locations or when the spatial filter varied randomly on every trial, filtering did not benefit suppression,” the study noted.

The study also revealed that if something important appears in the distracting location, our brain doesn’t want to ignore it, even if we typically try to ignore distractions there.

Overall, the research shows that our brain can control distractions better when it knows what to expect for a period of time.

“Results indicate that voluntary goal-driven control of salient distractor suppression occurs when the knowledge of the salient distractors is consistent throughout the task. Such goal-directed control, however, lacks flexibility such that knowledge of the salient distractors needs to be consistent for a period of time,” the study noted.

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The study

Vaishnvai Mohite, PhD student at the Action Control and Cognition Lab (ACCL), whose work focuses on studying the role of consciousness in distractor suppression, led this research, along with Dr Seema Prasad, Maria Reiche Postdoctoral Fellow, TU Dresden, Germany.

Prof Ramesh Kumar Mishra, Head of the Centre for Cognitive Sciences (CNCS) supervised the research and is actively pursuing these questions at ACCL.

The study investigated whether spatially-guided distractor suppression can be goal-driven. The researchers conducted four experiments using a feature search task and a salient distractor.