Implicitly learned suppression of irrelevant spatial locations.

How do we ignore a salient, irrelevant stimulus whose location is predictable? A variety of studies using instructional manipulations have shown that participants possess the capacity to exert location-based suppression. However, for the visual search challenges we face in daily life, we are not often provided explicit instructions and are unlikely to consciously deliberate on what our best strategy might be. Instead, we might rely on our past experience-in the form of implicit learning-to exert strategic control.