title: Real-world visual search is dominated by top-down guidance.
abstract: How do bottom-up and top-down guidance signals combine to guide search behavior? Observers searched for a target either with or without a preview (top-down manipulation) or a color singleton (bottom-up manipulation) among the display objects. With a preview, reaction times were faster and more initial eye movements were guided to the target; the singleton failed to attract initial saccades under these conditions. Only in the absence of a preview did subjects preferentially fixate the color singleton. We conclude that the search for realistic objects is guided primarily by top-down control. Implications for saliency map models of visual search are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-2500, USA.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Gregory J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Zelinsky
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*