title: Orientation search is mediated by distractor suppression: evidence from priming of pop-out.
abstract: In search for a singleton target, performance is considerably improved when the target and distractors repeat than when they switch roles, an effect called priming of pop-out or PoP (Maljkovic & Nakayama, 1994). Although this phenomenon has been replicated across a variety of dimensions, orientation PoP has proved to be volatile. Recent research has shown that target activation and distractor inhibition mechanisms underlie PoP (Lamy, Antebi, et al., 2008). Relying on this finding, we show that unlike in color and shape search, only distractor inhibition processes contribute to PoP in orientation search, which resolves the apparent inconstancies in the literature. The implications of this finding for mechanisms underlying PoP and orientation singleton search are discussed.
authors: Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, POB 39040, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. domi@post.tau.ac.il
authors: Dominique
authors: D
authors: Lamy
authors: Amit
authors: A
authors: Yashar
authors: Lital
authors: L
authors: Ruderman
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D060865:Repetition Priming; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*