Prepared for the expected but unready for the unexpected: Unmet distractor expectations slow braking responsiveness but improve lane-keeping precision in a virtual driving simulation

Abstract

Driving requires attentional control mechanisms to enhance the detection of driving-relevant objects and to mitigate interference from distractors. While distractor suppression can be proactively engaged when distracting events are expected, this mechanism also comes along with both costs and benefits, affecting responsiveness and accuracy even in their temporary absence. We explored the effect of distractor expectations on driving performance. Through an immersive driving simulator, participants (N = 24) performed an adapted version of the Distractor Context Manipulation (DCM) paradigm. They navigated a circuit and promptly pressed the brake pedal whenever a road sign-like target appeared, under three different conditions: a Pure Block without distractors, and two Mixed Blocks, featuring frequent irrelevant distractors (67% of trials) differing in perceptual complexity (Feature Search vs. Conjunction Search). We measured braking RTs and lane-keeping precision. Results showed that Mixed Blocks delayed braking RTs, even when distractors were temporarily absent, with the magnitude of this delay scaling with the perceptual similarity between target and distractors. Conversely, the same mechanism improved lane-keeping precision when neither targets nor distractors were present. Our findings suggest that distractor expectations modulate driving performance, entailing a trade-off between responsiveness and precision that depends on the characteristics of the distractor context.