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Perceptual load theory

Perceptual load theory (PLT) is a cognitive psychology framework that resolves the classic early-versus-late selection debate in attention by proposing that the perceptual demands of a primary task determine the extent to which irrelevant distractors are processed. Developed by Nilli Lavie in the mid-1990s, the theory asserts that high perceptual load—such as tasks requiring detailed feature integration or large display sets—fully consumes limited-capacity perceptual resources, resulting in early selection where distractors receive minimal or no processing. In contrast, low perceptual load leaves spare capacity, allowing involuntary processing of distractors and shifting selection to a later stage reliant on cognitive control mechanisms, like working memory, to suppress interference. This load-dependent mechanism has been empirically supported through paradigms like the response competition task, where distractor effects diminish under high load conditions. Over the subsequent decades, PLT has evolved into a broader load theory of selective attention and cognitive control^[1], incorporating distinctions between perceptual and cognitive load. High cognitive load, often from executive demands unrelated to perception (e.g., memorizing sequences), impairs distractor rejection by taxing top-down inhibitory processes, even under low perceptual load. Key findings demonstrate PLT's applicability across modalities, including auditory tasks where high load reduces irrelevant sound interference, and visual tasks showing reduced distractor effects in high-load search arrays. Individual differences modulate these effects: for instance, older adults exhibit heightened distractor interference due to lower perceptual capacity thresholds, while frequent video gamers show enhanced selectivity under load. The theory has real-world implications, such as explaining increased accident risks in low-load driving scenarios (e.g., highway cruising) where peripheral distractions intrude more readily.^[2] Despite its influence, PLT faces criticisms regarding the precise definition of "load," with some arguing that set size dilution—rather than true capacity exhaustion—accounts for reduced interference, and calls for more ecologically valid paradigms beyond lab-based flankers. Ongoing research explores neural correlates via fMRI, revealing load effects in early visual cortex activity, and extensions to clinical populations like those with ADHD or autism, where atypical load sensitivity contributes to attentional deficits.^[2] Future directions emphasize refining load metrics, cross-cultural validations, and applications in technology design to optimize attentional demands in interfaces.^[2]

Overview

Core Concepts

Perceptual load theory posits that selective attention operates within a limited capacity for perceptual processing, where the allocation of resources to task-relevant stimuli determines the extent to which irrelevant distractors are processed. Perceptual load is defined as the amount of attentional resources required to process task-relevant stimuli, operationalized by the number of items to be processed or the perceptual discrimination difficulty involved in the task.^[3] This framework emphasizes that attentional resources are finite and fully engaged by the primary task, leaving no spare capacity for non-task-related information under certain conditions.^[4] Under low perceptual load, when the task demands fewer resources, spare attentional capacity spills over to process irrelevant distractors, resulting in their interference with task performance and supporting late selection of stimuli.^[3] Conversely, high perceptual load exhausts the available capacity, preventing distractor processing and enabling early selection that filters out irrelevant information before it reaches higher cognitive stages.^[4] This dynamic mechanism allows selective attention—the prioritization of relevant over irrelevant stimuli—to adapt based on task demands.^[3] Perceptual load theory reconciles the early versus late selection debate by proposing that the stage at which selection occurs is not fixed but varies with perceptual load, unlike Broadbent's early selection model, which assumes filtering at an initial perceptual stage regardless of task demands, or the Deutsch and Deutsch late selection model, which posits that all stimuli are fully processed before selection.^[3] Thus, high load conditions favor early selection, while low load permits late selection, highlighting load as a key modulator of attentional selectivity.^[5]

Implications for Selective Attention

Perceptual load theory posits that under conditions of low perceptual load, task-irrelevant distractors are processed involuntarily due to available spare attentional capacity, resulting in response competition and prolonged reaction times during primary task performance.^[6] This involuntary processing occurs because perceptual resources are not fully engaged by the relevant task, allowing irrelevant stimuli to capture attention and interfere with goal-directed behavior.^[7] For instance, in tasks with minimal central demands, such as identifying a single target among few items, peripheral distractors can significantly slow responses by eliciting competing actions. In contrast, high perceptual load promotes efficient early selection by fully saturating perceptual capacity with relevant information, thereby filtering out task-irrelevant stimuli before they reach higher-level processing stages and minimizing interference.^[6] This mechanism enhances attentional selectivity, as the intensive demands of the primary task leave no residual resources for distractor encoding, leading to faster and more accurate performance on the focal task.^[7] Consequently, under high load, irrelevant information exerts negligible influence, supporting a shift toward early selection models of attention. Within visual search tasks, perceptual load modulates the scope of the attentional spotlight, where higher load conditions constrain attention to a narrower field, facilitating rapid target detection amid complex displays but potentially overlooking salient peripheral cues.^[7] This narrowing effect arises as increased search demands, such as larger set sizes, prioritize central processing and suppress extraneous visual input, optimizing efficiency for demanding searches like feature conjunctions. The theory further predicts the existence of attentional slack under low load, wherein unused perceptual capacity inadvertently supports awareness and processing of distractors, contributing to phenomena like inattentional blindness reversal or incidental memory formation for irrelevant items.^[6] This slack represents the spillover of resources beyond task requirements, explaining why low-load environments heighten vulnerability to distractions despite ample physical separation between relevant and irrelevant stimuli.^[7]

Historical Development

Early Theories of Attention

The early theories of selective attention emerged in the mid-20th century, primarily in response to observations from dichotic listening tasks where participants shadowed one auditory message while ignoring another. Donald Broadbent's filter model, introduced in 1958, posited that attention functions as an early selection mechanism, operating like a bottleneck that filters incoming sensory information based on basic physical features such as pitch, location, or intensity before further processing occurs. According to this model, unattended stimuli are completely blocked from semantic analysis, preventing overload of limited cognitive capacity and allowing only selected inputs to reach higher-level stages like recognition and response preparation.^[8] However, empirical evidence challenged the strict early filtering proposed by Broadbent, particularly findings showing occasional breakthroughs of meaning from unattended channels, such as the "cocktail party effect" where one's own name is detected amid irrelevant noise. Anne Treisman addressed these issues in her 1964 attenuation theory, which modified the filter model by suggesting that unattended stimuli undergo partial rather than complete suppression; they receive attenuated processing that allows basic physical analysis and, under low-load conditions or with high-priority features like personal relevance, limited semantic access without full conscious awareness. This intermediate approach explained variable interference from distractors, as attenuated inputs could still activate dictionary units for meaning if sufficiently salient, while maintaining capacity limits by reducing the intensity of non-selected information.^[9] In contrast, J.A. Deutsch and Diana Deutsch's late selection model, proposed in 1963, argued against any early filtering, asserting that all incoming stimuli are fully processed to the level of meaning before attentional selection occurs at a response stage, with interference arising from competition among interpreted messages based on their relevance or recency. This theory accounted for robust effects of semantic content in unattended stimuli, such as Stroop-like interference where irrelevant words influence color naming, but it implied that distractors should always compete for response, regardless of task demands.^[10] These fixed-locus models—early (Broadbent), intermediate (Treisman), and late (Deutsch-Deutsch)—struggled to reconcile conflicting evidence, as they assumed a constant processing stage for selection irrespective of task variability; for instance, early models underestimated distractor interference under low perceptual demands, while late models overpredicted it under high demands, failing to capture how effects of irrelevant stimuli fluctuate with the cognitive load of the primary task. Treisman's 1969 review highlighted these shortcomings, noting that no single fixed filter adequately explained the dynamic interplay between stimulus salience and attentional resources across paradigms.^[11]

Formulation by Nilli Lavie

Nilli Lavie developed perceptual load theory (PLT) in the mid-1990s to address inconsistencies in attention research, particularly the unpredictable variation in distractor interference observed in flanker tasks, where irrelevant stimuli sometimes disrupted performance despite efforts to focus on targets.^[12] These findings challenged existing models of selective attention, prompting Lavie to propose that the perceptual demands of a primary task determine whether irrelevant information is processed.^[12] In their seminal 1994 study, Lavie and Yehoshua Tsal conducted experiments using visual search tasks to demonstrate load-dependent interference effects. Participants performed searches varying in perceptual load—low load with a single target letter among homogeneous distractors, and high load with multiple heterogeneous letters—while irrelevant distractors were presented nearby. Results showed that under low load, distractors significantly interfered with target identification, indicating early selection limitations, whereas high load eliminated such interference, supporting late selection under resource saturation.^[12] This work laid the groundwork for PLT by establishing perceptual load as a key modulator of the locus of selection in visual attention.^[13] Lavie formalized PLT in her 1995 paper, introducing it as a framework that reconciles the early versus late selection debate by positing that high perceptual load exhausts capacity, preventing distractor processing, while low load allows spillover to irrelevant stimuli.^[3] The theory emphasized that selective attention requires sufficient perceptual load to filter distractions effectively, resolving prior inconsistencies by linking selection stage to task demands.^[14] During the 2000s, Lavie expanded PLT to incorporate cognitive control aspects. For instance, her 2004 load theory paper integrated cognitive load, while subsequent work, such as the 2007 study with Sophie Forster, showed that high perceptual load eliminates trait-based variations in susceptibility to distraction, making performance uniform across individuals.^[15]^[16] These developments refined PLT by addressing how load manipulations interact with personal traits.^[17]

Theoretical Foundations

Key Assumptions

Perceptual load theory (PLT), formulated by Nilli Lavie, rests on several foundational assumptions that explain how perceptual capacity influences selective attention. Central to the theory is the idea that perception has limited capacity, meaning that the perceptual system can only process a finite amount of information at any given time, necessitating selection to manage overload. Resources from this limited pool are automatically and involuntarily allocated first to task-relevant stimuli, ensuring that primary task demands are met before any surplus attention is considered. This automatic allocation occurs without deliberate control, as perception proceeds in a mandatory fashion on all stimuli entering the perceptual field until capacity is exhausted.^[18] A key postulate is that task-irrelevant processing only occurs if spare capacity remains after relevant processing is complete. Under conditions of high perceptual load, where the task fully consumes available resources, there is no spillover to distractors, leading to efficient early selection and minimal interference from irrelevant information. Conversely, low-load tasks leave residual capacity that inevitably captures and processes task-irrelevant stimuli, resulting in their perception and potential interference.^[18] This spillover is not under voluntary strategic control but arises as an automatic consequence of unused capacity. PLT further assumes that perception is obligatory, meaning that stimuli are processed to the extent that capacity permits, regardless of their relevance, and this process cannot be fully suppressed intentionally.^[18] Distractors thus enter awareness involuntarily if capacity allows, challenging notions of complete top-down control over early perceptual stages. This obligatory nature underscores the theory's resolution of the early versus late selection debate by tying selectivity to load rather than fixed stages. Finally, perceptual load is determined by the demands of the task, not merely the number of stimuli. Load reflects the complexity of perceptual operations required, such as distinguishing a target by a single feature (low load, e.g., color pop-out search) versus by a conjunction of features (high load, e.g., combining color and shape). This measure emphasizes qualitative task difficulty over quantitative stimulus quantity, allowing load to modulate selectivity across varied experimental contexts.^[18]

Distinction from Cognitive Load

Perceptual load theory (PLT) conceptualizes perceptual load as a constraint operating at the early stages of sensory processing, where the encoding of task-relevant stimuli competes for limited perceptual capacity, thereby influencing the extent to which irrelevant distractors are processed without reliance on higher-level cognitive mechanisms. High perceptual load exhausts this capacity, promoting efficient early selection and reducing distractor interference at the perceptual level, prior to conscious awareness.^[18] In distinction, within the broader load theory of selective attention and cognitive control, cognitive load refers to demands placed on working memory and executive functions, such as maintaining task goals or memorizing sequences, which affect later-stage processing and distractor suppression. High cognitive load impairs top-down inhibitory processes, even under low perceptual load, leading to increased interference from already perceived distractors.^[2] The core divergence manifests in their predictions regarding distractor effects: elevated perceptual load diminishes distractor processing by saturating early perceptual resources, fostering involuntary exclusion of irrelevant information, whereas high cognitive load exacerbates interference at later stages by depleting resources for strategic inhibition and response selection. Empirical tests demonstrate that perceptual load manipulations yield opposite outcomes to cognitive load manipulations, with the former reducing and the latter increasing distractor interference.^[2] While boundaries exist, high perceptual load can indirectly amplify cognitive demands by necessitating greater executive effort in downstream tasks, creating potential interplay; however, PLT maintains its emphasis on pre-attentive sensory limitations as the primary driver of selective attention, separate from cognitive load's focus on executive control mechanisms.^[2]

Empirical Support

Experimental Paradigms

Experimental paradigms in perceptual load theory (PLT) primarily involve visual tasks designed to manipulate the perceptual demands of a primary target identification or search process while introducing irrelevant distractors to assess the extent of their processing. These methods allow researchers to observe how varying levels of perceptual load influence distractor interference, typically measured through reaction times (RTs) and error rates on the primary task. Under low perceptual load, greater distractor interference is expected due to spillover of attentional capacity, whereas high perceptual load should minimize such effects by fully engaging limited perceptual resources. The flanker task, adapted from the Eriksen flanker paradigm, is a cornerstone method for testing PLT. In this setup, participants identify a central target stimulus, such as a letter (e.g., X or N), while ignoring flanking distractors positioned adjacent to it (e.g., compatible flankers like XXXXNXXXX or incompatible ones like HHHNHHHH). Perceptual load is manipulated by altering the difficulty of the central target processing: low load involves simple detection or categorization (e.g., identifying whether the central item is a specific letter among homogeneous distractors in the display), promoting parallel processing with minimal resource demand; high load requires more effortful discrimination, such as conjunction search involving multiple features (e.g., letter identity plus orientation or color). Distractor effects are quantified by comparing RTs and accuracy between compatible and incompatible flanker conditions, with interference (slower RTs or higher errors for incompatible flankers) serving as an indicator of distractor processing. This assumes that perceptual capacity is fixed, such that high load exhausts resources and prevents distractor spillover.^[1] Another key paradigm is the visual search task, which directly varies the perceptual demands of locating a target among display items. Participants scan an array to detect or identify a target (e.g., a specific letter like Z among O's), with an irrelevant distractor presented separately (e.g., a larger letter outside the array). Low perceptual load is achieved through feature search, where the target pops out via a single distinguishing attribute (e.g., detecting a red O among green O's, enabling parallel processing across the display); high perceptual load uses conjunction search, requiring serial integration of multiple features (e.g., detecting a red vertical bar among red horizontal bars and green vertical bars). Interference from the distractor is measured via RT differences when the distractor is compatible versus incompatible with the target response, alongside error rates, revealing the degree to which spare capacity allows distractor encoding under low load.^[1] The rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm examines temporal aspects of attention under load, particularly how perceptual demands affect processing of successive stimuli. In this task, items appear in quick succession at fixation (e.g., 10 items per second), and participants identify targets embedded in the stream while ignoring distractors. Load is manipulated by task type: low load involves detecting single-feature targets (e.g., a specific color change); high load requires identifying conjunction targets (e.g., a specific color and shape combination). Distractor spillover is assessed through the attentional blink effect—impaired detection of a second target following the first—or direct interference on primary target accuracy and RTs, with error rates indicating unconscious processing under high load conditions.^[19]

Key Studies and Findings

One of the foundational experiments supporting perceptual load theory (PLT) was conducted using a flanker task, where participants identified a central target letter while ignoring flanking distractors that were either compatible or incompatible with the target. Under low perceptual load, compatible flankers facilitated reaction times (RTs), while incompatible ones caused significant interference, resulting in RT slowdowns of approximately 30 ms; however, under high perceptual load, these compatibility effects were eliminated, indicating reduced distractor processing.^[20] Further evidence from a study employing an irrelevant distractor paradigm demonstrated that incongruent distractors—such as irrelevant cartoon images—impaired performance under low load conditions, leading to slower RTs and higher error rates, but had no such effect under high load, thereby supporting the notion of early perceptual filtering when load is sufficient.^[21] In negative priming tasks, where participants respond slower to a probe stimulus that was previously ignored as a distractor, PLT predicts greater involuntary processing of distractors under low load. Results showed robust negative priming effects (RT increases of approximately 40-60 ms) when prime targets were processed under low perceptual load, but these effects were absent or reversed under high load, suggesting that high load exhausts capacity and prevents distractor encoding into memory.^[22] Developmental studies have confirmed the consistency of load effects across age groups, with children as young as 7 years exhibiting greater distractor interference under low load in visual search tasks, similar to adults, though the threshold for high load to eliminate interference matures with age, indicating early emergence of load-dependent selection.^[23] Cross-cultural research in non-Western samples, such as the Himba, a semi-nomadic group in Namibia, has also replicated load effects in flanker tasks, showing reduced distractor interference under low load compared to Western groups, underscoring the universality of PLT principles beyond industrialized contexts.^[24]

Applications

Everyday and Clinical Contexts

In everyday driving scenarios, perceptual load theory explains how varying levels of task demand influence susceptibility to distractions. Under high perceptual load, such as navigating complex urban traffic with multiple vehicles and signals, drivers exhibit reduced processing of irrelevant stimuli like roadside billboards or passing scenery, thereby minimizing interference and enhancing focus on primary hazards.^[25] Conversely, low perceptual load conditions, like driving on an empty highway, allow greater intrusion from distractors, increasing reaction times to unexpected events and elevating crash risk.^[25] In clinical contexts involving attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), perceptual load theory accounts for chronic inattention symptoms through diminished perceptual capacity, resulting in heightened interference under low-load conditions. Adults with ADHD demonstrate more than double the distractor interference of controls in low-load tasks, correlating with inattentive behaviors, as irrelevant stimuli capture attention due to inefficient early selection.^[26] However, increasing perceptual load effectively counters this vulnerability, reducing distraction to levels comparable to neurotypical individuals by fully engaging limited resources and preventing spillover to irrelevant information.^[26] For autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the theory highlights enhanced perceptual capacity, which enables superior efficiency under high-load tasks but paradoxically leads to overload from distractors in low-load environments. Individuals with ASD maintain visual detection sensitivity despite elevated perceptual demands, unlike typical adults whose performance declines, suggesting broader resource allocation that processes more environmental details.^[27] This expanded capacity manifests in naturalistic settings as magnified reductions in social attention under increasing load, with smaller gains in attending to social cues compared to non-social elements, and vulnerability correlating with autistic traits.^[28] Workplace multitasking aligns with perceptual load theory's predictions, particularly in low-demand monitoring roles where distractions like incoming emails can exacerbate errors. In such scenarios, minimal perceptual engagement leaves spare capacity for irrelevant notifications, leading to greater interference and reduced task accuracy, as seen in studies of auditory multitasking where low load permits processing of task-unrelated features.^[29] High-load analytical tasks, by contrast, shield against these intrusions by saturating attentional resources, though overall multitasking efficiency suffers from divided demands across modalities.^[29]

Interventions and Training

Action video game training has been shown to increase perceptual capacity, thereby reducing the effects of distractors under conditions of low perceptual load. Seminal research demonstrated that non-players who underwent 10 hours of action video game training over several days exhibited significant improvements in visual selective attention tasks, including reduced interference from irrelevant stimuli, compared to those trained on non-action games.^[30] This enhancement aligns with perceptual load theory by expanding the threshold for perceptual processing, allowing individuals to allocate more resources to task-relevant information before spillover to distractors occurs; subsequent studies have confirmed that trained gamers process more visual items simultaneously with less distraction at low loads.^[31] In therapeutic contexts, particularly for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), perceptual load manipulation offers a strategy to minimize interference by designing tasks with high perceptual demands. Adults with ADHD typically show heightened distractibility under low-load conditions, with distractor interference more than doubling compared to controls, but high-load tasks eliminate this deficit, equalizing performance to non-clinical levels.^[26] This approach informs interventions that incorporate escalating task complexity to focus attention and reduce environmental distractions. Educational design informed by perceptual load theory emphasizes structuring lessons with graduated perceptual demands to foster attentional control. High-load instructional materials, such as content-dense visual aids, have been found to suppress individual differences in distractibility, enabling more uniform focus among learners regardless of baseline attention variability.^[17] By progressively increasing load—starting with simpler tasks and building to more complex ones—educators can train students to manage rising perceptual demands, enhancing overall attentional efficiency without overwhelming capacity.^[31] Recent applications of perceptual load theory extend to technology design, such as in integrated development environments (IDEs) for individuals with ADHD symptoms, where high perceptual load in coding tasks reduces distraction from notifications, improving performance as of 2023.^[32]

Criticisms and Debates

Methodological Concerns

One major methodological concern in perceptual load theory (PLT) revolves around the difficulty in cleanly manipulating and distinguishing perceptual load from cognitive or working memory load in experimental tasks. For instance, common paradigms like conjunction search, often used to induce high perceptual load, inherently involve working memory demands for template matching and item comparison, confounding the intended isolation of early perceptual processing. This issue is exemplified in studies where increased contralateral delay activity (CDA) under high-load conditions reflects greater memory load rather than perceptual capacity exhaustion, as shown by Luria and Vogel (2011). Additionally, PLT's definition of load can become circular, as interference from distractors is sometimes retroactively used to validate load levels instead of independent criteria. Another critique concerns the role of distractor salience, which can override load manipulations and challenge PLT's assumption of automatic perceptual capacity allocation. Highly salient distractors, such as those with abrupt onsets or unique features, produce interference effects even under conditions of high perceptual load, suggesting that bottom-up capture occurs independently of available resources. For example, in Theeuwes (2010), color singleton distractors slowed reaction times by approximately 25 ms regardless of search difficulty, indicating that salience-driven selection precedes and bypasses load-based filtering. This persists even after extensive training, as demonstrated in related paradigms where interference remained robust across 1800 trials. PLT's load effects have also been attributed to changes in attentional zoom or spatial focus rather than true capacity limitations, raising questions about the theory's core mechanism. The zoom lens model proposes that high-load tasks narrow the attentional spotlight to enhance resolution within a smaller area, reducing distractor processing peripherally without exhausting perceptual resources. Eriksen and St. James (1986) provided foundational evidence for this by showing faster detection within a focused attentional window compared to a broader one, with performance gradients mirroring a zoom-like adjustment. Subsequent work, such as Theeuwes et al. (2004), further argued that apparent load differences vanish when attentional sets are mixed across trials, implying strategic spatial allocation rather than fixed capacity. Finally, the reliability of RT-based measures of interference in PLT experiments is compromised by potential confounds from motivation, response strategies, or overall task difficulty, which may not isolate perceptual processes. Reaction time interference often reflects a composite of sensory, cognitive, and motor factors rather than pure early selection, leading to ambiguous interpretations of load's impact. Tsal and Benoni (2010) highlighted this through the "dilution" account, where increased set size under high load dilutes distractor processing via statistical averaging, not resource depletion, thus questioning the specificity of RT as a perceptual load indicator. Recent replication attempts as of 2025 have further challenged PLT's methodological robustness, with Snowden and Gray (2025) failing to observe reduced distraction under high perceptual load across six experiments using flanker tasks; instead, significant distractor effects (e.g., 56–67 ms) persisted at both low and high loads, suggesting that load manipulations may not reliably produce the predicted filtering in all contexts.^[33]

Alternative Explanations

One prominent alternative to perceptual load theory (PLT) is the dilution account proposed by Tsal and Benoni, which attributes reduced distractor interference under high-load conditions not to exhausted perceptual capacity but to the dilution of attentional resources across multiple nontarget items, effectively suppressing distractor processing through competition rather than passive limits. This view emphasizes active mechanisms of resource allocation and distractor inhibition, where increasing the number of task-irrelevant but attended items (e.g., nontarget letters in a search task) spreads attention thinly, minimizing interference without invoking a fixed perceptual bottleneck. Critics of PLT, including Tsal and Benoni, argue that standard load manipulations confound dilution with load, as high-load tasks often introduce more diluters; experiments isolating dilution by adding neutral items under low load replicate the interference reduction typically ascribed to PLT. Lavie and colleagues have countered that dilution effects occur only when capacity remains after task demands, aligning with PLT's spillover principle, but the debate highlights how dilution prioritizes competitive suppression over inherent capacity constraints. Attentional control theory (ACT), developed by Eysenck et al., offers another rival framework by integrating anxiety's influence on attention, positing that load effects on distractor processing are modulated by individual differences in attentional control rather than perceptual demands alone. Under ACT, high anxiety impairs the inhibition of task-irrelevant stimuli and goal maintenance in working memory, leading to greater intrusion of distractors even at moderate perceptual loads, whereas low-anxious individuals exhibit stronger top-down control akin to high-load protection in PLT. This theory accounts for PLT-like phenomena—such as reduced interference under demanding tasks—through strategic goal shielding and conflict resolution in prefrontal regions, not just early perceptual filtering; for instance, anxious individuals show persistent distractor effects in low-load tasks due to weakened executive control, challenging PLT's emphasis on universal capacity limits. Empirical tests, including Stroop tasks under anxiety induction, support ACT by demonstrating that cognitive control training can mimic high-load benefits without altering perceptual demands. The locus-of-slack hypothesis, drawn from dual-task paradigms, further challenges PLT's strict early-versus-late selection dichotomy by suggesting that the timing and source of distractor interference vary flexibly based on task structure, rather than being determined solely by perceptual load. In psychological refractory period (PRP) studies, this method identifies processing stages by varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA); under low load, distractor effects emerge early if slack exists in perceptual stages, but high load may shift interference to central or response stages, indicating multiple flexible bottlenecks rather than a load-dependent perceptual gate. Forster and Lavie have responded by arguing that load modulates the availability of slack in early perception, preserving PLT's core while accommodating timing variations, as seen in visual search tasks where high load absorbs early interference without late spillover. This hypothesis thus reframes PLT phenomena as outcomes of dynamic slack allocation across stages, emphasizing task-specific bottlenecks over a singular perceptual mechanism. Neural evidence from fMRI studies also supports alternatives positing multiple bottlenecks beyond perceptual load, with Lavie's own research revealing parietal lobe involvement in attentional selection that extends to central executive functions, not just early sensory filtering. For example, high perceptual load activates fronto-parietal networks comparably to cognitive control tasks, suggesting interference reduction arises from distributed top-down suppression across sensory and parietal regions, rather than capacity exhaustion at perception alone. These findings imply a multi-stage model where parietal mechanisms handle goal-directed filtering independently of load, accounting for distractor effects through parallel bottlenecks; in low-load conditions, parietal under-engagement allows spillover, but this is modulated by executive resources, challenging PLT's perceptual primacy. Such neural patterns align with broader theories of divided attention, where multiple loci (e.g., occipito-parietal and prefrontal) compete, providing a substrate for flexible selection without relying on load as the sole determinant.

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Tsal and Benoni's (2010) claims that perceptual load effects may be accounted for in terms of dilution pertain only to the manipulation of perceptual load with ...
[40]
Anxiety and cognitive performance: attentional control theory
Attentional control theory is an approach to anxiety and cognition representing a major development of Eysenck and Calvo's (1992) processing efficiency theory.
[41]
Attentional control theory: Anxiety, emotion, and motor planning
Attentional control theory. ACT (Eysenck et al., 2007) contends that anxiety manifests in impaired attentional control, which leads to performance deficits ...
[42]
The involvement of central attention in visual search is determined ...
Jan 23, 2017 · In those studies, applying the locus of slack method (Schweickert, 1980), participants were required to make immediate and speeded responses ...
[43]
Harnessing the wandering mind: The role of perceptual load - PMC
Here we establish the role of perceptual load in determining an internal form of distraction by task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs or “mind-wandering”).
[44]
Blinded by the load: attention, awareness and the role of perceptual ...
Lavie's load theory of attention suggests that the puzzle can be solved by considering the role of perceptual load.
[45]
The neural correlates of perceptual load induced attentional selection
Oct 10, 2013 · According to perceptual load theory, a task with high perceptual load that engages all available processing resources would leave effectively ...