In visual search, guidance by surface type is different than classic guidance

Abstract

Visual search for targets among distractors is more efficient if attention can be guided to targets by attributes like color. In real-world search, we guide attention using information about surfaces. (e.g., paintings are on walls). We compare “classic” color guidance to surface guidance in “scenes” of cubes. When a target can lie on one of many surfaces, color guidance is effective but surface guidance is not (Exp. 1-3). Surface guidance works when cued surfaces are coplanar (Exp. 4) or few in number (Exp. 5). We speculate that surface guidance is slow and limited to very few surfaces at one time.

When are abrupt onsets found efficiently in complex visual search? Evidence from multielement asynchronous dynamic search.

“…Participants missed 20-30% of the targets in these experiments, a much higher rate than those typically observed in lab based visual search experiments 7 . Recent work has found that a similar percentage of errors has been observed in Low Prevalence (LP) visual search tasks where the target only appears rarely (approximately 1-2% of the time, Wolfe et al, 2005, Fleck & Mitroff, 2007, Kunar et al, 2010, Rich et al, 2008, Russell & Kunar, 2012, and Van Wert et al, 2009. In these LP 7 When the target was a unique blinking item (Experiment 6) or a unique moving item (Experiment 7), however, miss errors were relatively low, following the trend found in the RT data.…”

“…In contrast there was little change in sensitivity (Russell & Kunar, 2012, and Van Wert et al, 2009. Given that the miss rates here were similar in numerosity to that of LP experiments one could suggest that a similar process was occurring.…”

“…Given its complexity, perhaps the visual system takes longer to parse the display than in simpler search tasks. Recent research has shown that the strength of the guidance signal can increase with time and preexposure to the display (Kunar et al, 2008b; Wolfe et al, 2009). If this is the case, then giving people more time with the MAD display would lead to an increase in guidance signal, allowing participants to use guidance cues more effectively.…”

“…Recent research has suggested that, in some situations, attentional guidance needs time to develop (e.g. Kunar et al, 2008b;Wolfe et al, 2009). Knowing this, if participants were given more time to process the blinking items they might be able to guide their attention to them more efficiently.…”

“…A second reason why blinking items did not capture attention in MAD search might have been that more time was needed to process the display because of its complexity. Recent research has suggested that, in some situations, attentional guidance needs time to develop (e.g., Kunar, Flusberg, & Wolfe, 2008b; Wolfe, Reijnen, Van Wert, & Kuzmova, 2009). Knowing this, if participants were given more time to process the blinking items, they might be able to guide their attention to them more efficiently.…”