title: Target-nontarget similarity modulates stimulus-driven control in visual search.
abstract: The literature contains conflicting results concerning whether an irrelevant featural singleton (an item unique with respect to a feature such as color or brightness) can control attention in a stimulus-driven manner. The present study explores whether target-nontarget similarity influences stimulus-driven shifts of attention to a distractor. An experiment evaluated whether manipulating target-nontarget similarity by varying orientation would modulate distraction by an irrelevant feature (a bright singleton). We found that increasing target-nontarget similarity resulted in a decreased impact of a uniquely bright object on visual search. This method of manipulating the target-nontarget similarity independent of the salience of a distracting feature suggests that the extent to which visual attention is stimulus-driven depends on the target-nontarget similarity.
authors.affiliation: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. michael.proulx@uni.duesseldorf.de
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Proulx
authors.forename: Howard E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Egeth
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D006801:Humans; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception