School of Psychology - Activities - Featured Publications - Facilitation of responses to degraded targets by non-degraded distractorsIt is well-established that distractors interfere with goal-directed responses. Our recent findings indicate that the presence of corners in degraded line drawings of distractor stimuli modulates response times and accuracy to non-degraded targets (Kritikos and Pavlis, 2007). In the present study we ask whether non-degraded distractors may facilitate responses to degraded targets (corners or line segments missing). We presented targets at fixation and accompanied by identical, congruent or incongruent distractors. Participants responded to two object categories (musical instruments and tools) consisting of four line drawings. Corners missing targets in particular were associated with greater interference from distractors than non-degraded-targets. This interference was modulated when distractor locations were endogenously or exogenously cued. Findings will be discussed in the context of attentional processing of object features that are crucial to action.