Burcu A. Urgen¹, Ataol B. Ozsu²; ¹Bilkent University

Theories explaining how selective visual attention is mediated by top-down regulation highlight various factors, including the presence of a task and its perceptual load (Lavie, 1995), the salience of visual elements (Eltiti et al., 2005), and expectations about the perceived visual input (Summerfield & Egner, 2009; Rauss et al., 2011). Although these accounts are not theoretically conflicting, empirical studies integrating these factors to explore their interplay remain scarce. In this study, we investigate how expectations about task demands influence the processing of distractors with varying degrees of semantic salience. We adapted the letter search task (Lavie & Cox, 1997) and introduced predictive cues ("EASY" or "HARD") about upcoming task demands (low-load vs. high-load). These cues correctly predicted the task demands in 75% of trials. Two experiments were conducted: in the first (n = 20), we used Gabor patches as distractors with low semantic salience, while in the second (n = 20), we used faces as distractors with high semantic salience. Our analyses revealed that when the cues about task demands were incongruent with the actual sensory input, participants exhibited slower response times. Furthermore, the effect of cue-task congruency was amplified in the presence of semantically salient distractors, as participants showed significantly greater differences between congruent and incongruent trials when faces were used as distractors. Lastly, the interaction between cue congruency and the distractor presence was only present in the second experiment as a larger difference in reaction time between congruent and incongruent trials was observed when faces were presented compared to no distractor condition. In conclusion, we suggest that expectations about task demands influence attentional processing for both semantically salient and less salient stimuli. However, when visual elements compete more intensely for attention, utilizing prior information about task demands becomes increasingly important for effective attention regulation.