title: Do intersections serve as basic features in visual search?
abstract: The status of 'intersection' as a basic feature in visual search tasks has been controversial. Under some circumstances, a target possessing this attribute (eg a plus) 'pops out' of a display of distractors that lack the attribute (eg Ls). However, those cases may be artifacts of other features such as relative size or number of line terminators. We report two sets of experiments with stimuli intended to control for these factors. Search for the presence or absence of intersections is very inefficient with these stimuli. The results suggest that intersection should not be included among the list of salient features that support efficient search through visual displays.
authors.affiliation: Brigham and Women's Hospital, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. wolfe@search.bwh.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Jeremy M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Wolfe
authors.forename: Jennifer S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: DiMase
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity / Q000502:physiology*; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*