In a visual search task, knowing features of distractors inadvance leads to a more efficient visual search. Although previousstudies suggested that the benefits of these negative cuesrely on attentional control, it is unclear whether proactive orreactive control is involved. In this study, we analyzed the EEGdata of participants performing a visual search task (n=14). Participantssearched for a shape-defined target after receiving apositive cue (target color), negative cue (distractor color), orneutral cue (non-informative). To examine proactive control,we measured EEG after the cue onset but before visual search.Our time-frequency analysis revealed a higher power of thetaoscillations over frontoparietal regions after the negative cuescompared with the positive and neutral cues, as well as highertheta phase synchronization within the prefrontal region, demonstratingnegative cues rely more heavily on proactive controlcompared with other cue types. To examine reactive control, wemeasured EEG after the search onset. We found a lateralizationof posterior alpha power toward the target side in both positiveand negative cues conditions, with a later lateralization observedafter negative cues. Interestingly, we observed a significant relationshipbetween the increase of proactive theta power afternegative cues and the decrease of reactive alpha power afterthe search. This suggests the coordination of proactive and reactivemechanisms lead to the most efficient search.
展开▼
