Attentional capture by an irrelevant salient distractor is attenuated when the distractor appears more frequently in one location, suggesting learned suppression of that location. However, it remains unclear whether suppression is proactive (before attention is directed) or reactive (after attention is allocated). Here, we investigated this using a ‘pinging’ technique to probe the attentional distribution before search onset. In an EEG experiment, participants searched for a shape singleton while ignoring a color singleton distractor at a high-probability location. To reveal the hidden attentional priority map, participants also performed a continuous recall spatial memory task, with a neutral placeholder display presented before search onset. Behaviorally, search was more efficient when the distractor appeared at the high-probability location. Inverted encoding analysis of EEG data showed tuning profiles that decayed during memory maintenance but were revived by the placeholder display. Notably, tuning was most pronounced at the to-be-suppressed location, suggesting initial spatial selection followed by suppression. These findings suggest that learned distractor suppression is a reactive process, providing new insights into learned spatial distractor suppression mechanisms.

The unexpected absence of danger constitutes a pleasurable event that is critical for the learning of safety. Accumulating evidence points to similarities between the processing of absent threat and the well-established reward prediction error (PE). However, clear-cut evidence for this analogy in humans is scarce. In line with recent animal data, we showed that the unexpected omission of (painful) electrical stimulation triggers activations within key regions of the reward and salience pathways and that these activations correlate with the pleasantness of the reported relief. Furthermore, by parametrically violating participants’ probability and intensity related expectations of the upcoming stimulation, we showed for the first time in humans that omission-related activations in the VTA/SN were stronger following omissions of more probable and intense stimulations, like a positive reward PE signal. Together, our findings provide additional support for an overlap in the neural processing of absent danger and rewards in humans.