Target Templates in Low Target-Distractor Discriminability Visual Search Have Higher Resolution, but the Advantage They Provide is Short-lived

Abstract

When you search repeatedly for a set of items among very similar distractors, does that make you more efficient in locating the targets? To address this, we had observers search for two categories of targets among the same set of distractors across trials. After a few blocks of trials, the distractor set was replaced. In two experiments, we manipulated the level of discriminability between the targets and distractors before and after the distractors were replaced. Our results suggest that in the presence of repeated distractors, observers generally become more efficient. However, the difficulty of the search task does impact how efficient people are when the distractor set is replaced. Specifically, when the training is easy, people are more impaired in a difficult transfer test. We attribute this effect to the precision of the target template generated during training. In particular, a coarse target template is created when the target and distractors are easy to discriminate. These coarse target templates do not transfer well in a context with new distractors. This suggests that learning with more distinct targets and distractors can result in lower performance when context changes, but observers recover from this effect quickly (within a block of search trials).

Prefrontal Control of Proactive and Reactive Mechanisms of Visual Suppression

“…Discriminating between the two is thus expected to involve a precise evaluation of their spatial contingencies and is expected to be enhanced by the attentional spotlight ( Treisman and Gelade 1980 ; Duncan and Humphreys 1989 ; Wolfe and Horowitz 2004 ; Navalpakkam and Itti 2007 ; Goldstone et al. 2012; Lau et al. 2019 ; Lu et al.…”

Selection and suppression of visual information in the macaque prefrontal cortex

“…In our task, target and distractors shared the same features and contrast with respect to the background. Discriminating between the two is thus expected to involve a precise evaluation of their spatial contingencies and is expected to be enhanced by the attentional spotlight ( 71–77 ). Confirming this view, the initial visual evoked response to the task-irrelevant distractor is enhanced when the attentional spotlight is close to it, while, at the same time, the extent to which the neuronal activity is suppressed is critical.…”