Figure 1.

Three different scenarios of how expectations may modulate the representation of distracting information in anticipation of new sensory input (i.e., anticipatory distractor tuning). The tuning curves reflect selectivity of population‐level neural activity to a particular feature (e.g., location or orientation). Expectations about upcoming distractor information may result in anticipatory tuning (A) toward the expected distractor feature or (B) away from the expected distractor feature resulting in negative anticipatory distractor tuning. The subplots of figure B illustrate different scenarios that may all produce negative tuning slopes: as consequence of reduced anticipatory tuning to the distractor (panel B1), of shifting anticipatory tuning away from the expected distractor to nondistractor features/locations (panel B2), or a combination of both (panel B3). The horizontal blue line in each subplot indicates the baseline situation of no expectation. (C) Alternatively, distractor expectations may not be evident in anticipatory neural activity (firing) patterns.