Involuntary cueing effects on accuracy measures: Stimulus and task dependence

Observers reported the orientation of a tilted grating that was presented together with a vertical distractor grating. In the main experiments, target contrast was low. There was location uncertainty because target location varied randomly and differences between target and distractor were small. In contrast to a previous report (T. Liu, F. Pestilli, & M. Carrasco, 2005), our results showed that non-informative peripheral cues do not improve perceptual performance at the cued location. However, informative peripheral or central cues improved perceptual performance. When we changed the task from an unspeeded perceptual task to a speeded reaction time task, the absence of involuntary cueing effects persisted when a distractor was presented. Without distractors, involuntary cueing effects re-emerged. When target contrast was increased, involuntary cueing effects re-emerged with a distractor but were smaller than without. We suggest that more difficult perceptual tasks reduce or abolish involuntary cueing effects.