title: Scene context guides eye movements during visual search.
abstract: How does scene context guide search behavior to likely target locations? We had observers search for scene-constrained and scene-unconstrained targets, and found that scene-constrained targets were detected faster and with fewer eye movements. Observers also directed more initial saccades to target-consistent scene regions and devoted more time to searching these regions. However, final checking fixations on target-inconsistent regions were common in target-absent trials, suggesting that scene context does not strictly confine search to likely target locations. We interpret these data as evidence for a rapid top-down biasing of search behavior by scene context to the target-consistent regions of a scene.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA.
authors.forename: Mark B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Neider
authors.forename: Gregory J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Zelinsky
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*