Derrek T. Montalvo¹ (), Blaire Dube², Julie D. Golomb¹; ¹The Ohio State University, ²Memorial University of Newfoundland

In dynamic visual environments, abrupt salient events can influence performance, but the time period in which the visual system is maximally sensitive to such events remains unclear. A central question is whether a critical time window exists, after search onset but before a decision is made, during which abrupt onset salient events exert their strongest influence, and whether this temporal sensitivity varies based on the spatial validity of the salient event (e.g., capture by a distractor vs. facilitation by a valid cue), and/or across individuals. In the present study, we directly examined this post-stimulus, pre-decision period by manipulating the onset delay of an abrupt cue (50, 150, 350, 425, and 500 ms post search onset), that appeared around either the search target (salient target) or a non-target (salient distractor). Salient target and salient distractor cues were tested in different versions of the experiment (all participants performed both versions, order counterbalanced), and onset delays within each version were randomly intermixed with cue-absent trials. Across both versions of the task, cue timing strongly shaped performance. The earliest onset (50 ms) produced the largest effects: salient target cues generated the strongest facilitation, while salient distractor cues produced the greatest slowing. Sensitivity to the salient cue declined progressively as the delay increased, with later delays exerting a progressively weaker influence on performance. Moreover, reliable individual differences were present at the earliest delay (but not later). At 50 ms, the magnitude of the distractor driven slowing was correlated with the magnitude of target driven speeding, such that individuals who were strongly slowed by a salient distractor also showed the strongest facilitation when the cue appeared at the target location, suggesting that both early capture and facilitation may be driven by a shared salience-susceptibility mechanism and that priority maps are maximally unstable early after search onset.

Acknowledgements: NIH R01-EY025648 (JG), Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada