Roles of salience and strategy in conjunction search.
In some cases, the search for a conjunction target proceeds through the smaller group of elements in a display, whereas in others, search is limited to those elements that share a particular feature with the target. In 6 experiments, participants searched for a conjunction target among displays consisting of various proportions of 2 distractor types. Smaller-group search was more prevalent than target-feature search with denser displays and with features that were highly discriminable. Explicit instructions to limit search to a specific feature affected performance only when the discriminability of the guiding feature was much greater than the other target feature. Together, these experiments show that bottom-up factors have more influence in guiding conjunction searches than previously thought.
Sobel
Kenith V
KV
Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37240, USA. k.sobel@vanderbilt.edu
Cave
Kyle R
KR
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D003116:Color; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005133:Eye Movements; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011930:Reaction Time