Dynamics of attentional allocation to targets and distractors during visual search

•Stimulus-driven theories hold that all salient stimuli capture attention.•goal-driven theories posit that salient but irrelevant stimuli can be inhibited.•despite absent behavioral costs, pop-out distractors captured attention initially.•attention to distractors is withdrawn at a later stage, while it is sustained for targets.•marking stimulus positions speeds up neural processing and improves performance.