Shinhae Ahn¹ (), Richard A. Abrams¹; ¹Washington University in St. Louis

Attention and action are tightly intertwined--action goes where attention goes. For goal-directed reaching, suppressing salient distractors is crucial to avoid unintended movements. Previous studies have shown that salient distractors influence reaching movement trajectories, causing deviations toward the distractors. However, those results were obtained under conditions where attentional suppression of the distractors was not possible. Little is known about how suppressed distractors may influence reaching movements. The present study examined the influence of distractor suppression on the trajectory of reaching movements toward targets. In a visual search task, participants searched for a target shape among non-target distractors in which one of the distractors contained a salient-but-irrelevant color singleton on some trials. Participants were instructed to reach to the target by moving a mouse cursor while ignoring the salient distractor. The search mode was manipulated in two experiments: singleton-detection mode, where the target was defined as a unique shape among homogeneous distractors, promoting attentional capture by salient singleton, and feature-search mode, where the target shape was specific among heterogeneous distractors, facilitating singleton suppression. The onset and duration of the reaching movements replicated the patterns observed in previous studies: Salient distractors produced attentional capture in singleton-detection mode, slowing the onset and completion of the movements, but yielded a slight benefit in feature-search mode, implying effective distractor suppression. Importantly, analysis of the movements revealed that the presence of salient distractors significantly affected reaching movement trajectories in singleton detection mode, showing a deviation toward the distractors consistent with attentional capture; however minimal impact was observed on the trajectories under feature-search mode, indicating successful suppression of the distractors. Overall, the findings suggest that suppression of salient distractors not only reduces their effects on attentional and perceptual processing, but can minimize their impact on goal-directed reaching actions.