Singleton distractors may inadvertently capture attention, interfering with the task at hand. The underlying neural mechanisms of how we prevent or handle distractor interference remain elusive. Here, we varied the type of salient distractor introduced in a visual search task: the distractor could be defined in the same (shape) dimension as the target, a different (color) dimension, or a different (tactile) modality (intra‐dimensional, cross‐dimensional, and, respectively, cross‐modal distractor, all matched for physical salience); and besides behavioral interference, we measured lateralized electrophysiological indicators of attentional selectivity (the N2pc, Ppc, PD, CCN/CCP, CDA, and cCDA). The results revealed the intra‐dimensional distractor to produce the strongest reaction‐time interference, associated with the smallest target‐elicited N2pc. In contrast, the cross‐dimensional and cross‐modal distractors did not engender any significant interference, and the target‐elicited N2pc was comparable to the condition in which the search display contained only the target singleton, thus ruling out early attentional capture. Moreover, the cross‐modal distractor elicited a significant early CCN/CCP, but did not influence the target‐elicited N2pc, suggesting that the tactile distractor is registered by the somatosensory system (rather than being proactively suppressed), without, however, engaging attention. Together, our findings indicate that, in contrast to distractors defined in the same dimension as the target, distractors singled out in a different dimension or modality can be effectively prevented to engage attention, consistent with dimension‐ or modality‐weighting accounts of attentional priority computation. This study contributes to resolving hot debates of attentional capture. Participants ignored task‐irrelevant distractors without attentional engagement rather than actively suppressing them. Especially, the cross‐modal distractor elicited sensorimotor ERPs, but participants did not deploy attentional resources to it. The results supported distractor handling via down‐weighted or no‐engagement to task‐irrelevant features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]