Research has demonstrated that oculomotor visual search is guided by memory for which items or locations within a display have already been inspected. In the study reported here, we used a gaze-contingent search paradigm to examine properties of this memory. Data revealed a memory buffer for search history of three to four items. This buffer was effected in part by a space-based trace attached to a location independently of whether the object that had been seen at that position remained visible, and was subject to interference from other stimuli seen in the course of a trial.
Analysing response time (RT) data from a novel, multiple-target visual search task, Horowitz and Wolfe (2001) found evidence to suggest that the control of attention during visual search is not guided by memory for which of the items or locations within a display have already been inspected. Here, analysis of eye movement data from a similar experiment suggests that RT effects in the multiple-target search task are primarily due to changes in eye movements, and that effects which appeared to reveal memory-free search were actually produced by changes in oculomotor sampling behaviour.With a series of recent reportsraised a surprising challenge for theorists of visual search. Models of search have largely converged on a common framework, postulating a hybrid architecture in which parallel preprocessing across the visual field guides the attentional selection of potential target items (e.g.
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