We are excited to share that our lab member, Dr. Siyi Chen, has published a new paper in The Journal of Neuroscience revealing how the brain flexibly adapts visual search strategies based on the predictability of surrounding context.

Using high-density EEG, Dr. Chen and colleagues showed that when a distractor layout reliably predicted the target’s location, the brain engaged a contextual guidance mode — reflected in a robust sequence of event-related lateralized potentials: an early N1pc (signaling the learned target location), an enhanced N2pc (attentional selection), and a stronger contralateral delay activity (CDA) indexing working memory processing.

In contrast, when the distractor context did not predict the target’s location, participants still benefited from context learning, but the neural signature shifted. The N1pc was absent, and the CDA was reduced, indicating that the brain switched to a context suppression mode — downweighting distractors to improve target selection efficiency.

This work provides compelling electrophysiological evidence that contextual cueing relies on two distinct mechanisms: guidance when context is predictive, and suppression when it is not. These findings advance our understanding of how attention and learning interact to optimize behavior in complex visual environments.

Reference:

Chen 陈思佚, S., Merkuš, N., Tsai 蔡劭扬, S.-Y., Cheng 程思, S., Müller, H. J., & Shi 施壮华, Z. (2025). Statistical context learning in visual search: Distinct electrophysiological signatures of contextual guidance and context suppression. The Journal of Neuroscience: The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 45(22). https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2186-24.2025