Effect of transfer of statistical learning of distractor suppression from external to internal attention

Abstract

Working memory as part of internal attention has not been studied much. It is important to study working memory because it can help us connect internal and external attention. The present study investigates whether statistical learning of distractor suppression is transferred from external to internal attention. Further, the effect of the working memory load on this transfer will be observed. It was hypothesised that the sensitivity for the probe presented in the repeated location would be lower than that presented in the non-repeated location. The experiment was created using MATLAB 2023b and conducted on undergraduate students at Ahmedabad University. The experiment had two phases. The first phase was the additional singleton task, where the statistical regularity of distractors was learned. The second phase was the delayed discrimination task, where the working memory load was manipulated, and the transfer was observed. The data for 43 participants was used for the low load experiment, and the data of 45 participants was used for the high load experiment. For the analysis, t-tests were done to find the significance of the difference in the means of the proportion of hits, false alarms, d-prime, and criterion. For the high load experiment, significance was found for the difference in false alarms, with increased false alarms for the probe presented in the previously suppressed location. This suggests that there indeed was a transfer of statistical learning, and this caused negative response bias in the participants. Future studies can be done using neurological means to add more depth to our understanding.