scholarly journals There is more to contextual cuing than meets the eye: Improving visual search without attentional guidance towards predictable target locations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel A. Vadillo ◽  
Tamara Giménez-Fernández ◽  
Tom Beesley ◽  
David Shanks ◽  
David Luque
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Search Display ◽  
Repeated Exposure ◽  
Visual Scene ◽  
Contextual Cuing ◽  
Attentional Guidance ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Usual Location ◽  
Target Locations

It is usually easier to find objects in a visual scene as we gain familiarity with it. Two decades of research on contextual cuing of visual search show that repeated exposure to a search display can facilitate the detection of targets that appear at predictable locations in that display. Typical accounts for this effect attribute an essential role to learned associations between the target and other stimuli in the search display. These associations improve visual search either by driving attention towards the usual location of the target or by facilitating its recognition. Contrary to this view, we show that a robust contextual cuing effect can also be observed when repeated search displays do not allow the location of the target to be predicted. These results suggest that, in addition to the mechanisms already explored by previous research, participants learn to ignore the locations usually occupied by distractors, which in turn facilitates the detection of targets even when they appear in unpredictable locations.

Local Contextual Cuing in Visual Search

2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Hoffmann ◽  
Albrecht Sebald
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Contextual Cuing ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Local Topography ◽  
Target Locations

Abstract. Previous research has indicated that covariations between the global layout of search displays and target locations result in contextual cuing: the global context guides attention to probable target locations. The present experiments extend these findings by showing that local redundancies also facilitate visual search. Participants searched for randomly located targets in invariant homogenous displays, i.e., the global context provided information neither about the location nor about the identity of the target. The only redundancy referred to spatial relations between the targets and certain distractors: Two of the distractors were frequently presented next to the targets. In four of five experiments, targets with frequent flankers were detected faster than targets with rare flankers. The data suggest that this local contextual cuing does not depend on awareness of the redundant local topography but needs the redundantly related stimuli to be attended to.

scholarly journals The Speed of Serial Attention Shifts in Visual Search: Evidence from the N2pc Component

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Grubert ◽  
Martin Eimer
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Serial Order ◽  
Search Display ◽  
Color Target ◽  
Selection Models ◽  
Sequential Movements ◽  
Target Locations ◽  
Attention Shifts

Finding target objects among distractors in visual search display is often assumed to be based on sequential movements of attention between different objects. However, the speed of such serial attention shifts is still under dispute. We employed a search task that encouraged the successive allocation of attention to two target objects in the same search display and measured N2pc components to determine how fast attention moved between these objects. Each display contained one digit in a known color (fixed-color target) and another digit whose color changed unpredictably across trials (variable-color target) together with two gray distractor digits. Participants' task was to find the fixed-color digit and compare its numerical value with that of the variable-color digit. N2pc components to fixed-color targets preceded N2pc components to variable-color digits, demonstrating that these two targets were indeed selected in a fixed serial order. The N2pc to variable-color digits emerged approximately 60 msec after the N2pc to fixed-color digits, which shows that attention can be reallocated very rapidly between different target objects in the visual field. When search display durations were increased, thereby relaxing the temporal demands on serial selection, the two N2pc components to fixed-color and variable-color targets were elicited within 90 msec of each other. Results demonstrate that sequential shifts of attention between different target locations can operate very rapidly at speeds that are in line with the assumptions of serial selection models of visual search.

The Speed of Visual Search in the Absence of Sensory Effects

Perception ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jukka Saarinen
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Search Time ◽  
Search Display ◽  
Serial Search ◽  
Set Size ◽  
Sensory Effects ◽  
Stimulus Block ◽  
Target Experiment ◽  
Target Locations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficiency or speed of the frequently used L versus T visual search when sensory effects were controlled, ie ‘set size’ was not defined as the number of distractor patterns, but the number of distractors in the display was kept constant and the number of possible target positions varied. A search display consisted of an L-target among T-distractors, and the observer's task was to report the presence or absence of the target (experiment 1) or to identify it (whether the L-target was left-facing or right-facing; experiment 2). The observer was instructed prior to each stimulus block, about the display locations in which the target could appear. In both experiments, search time increased significantly with an increasing number of possible target locations, thus indicating that L versus T search is not ‘serial’ owing to sensory effects. Because, in the first two experiments, a search display was visible until the observer gave a response, ‘serial’ search might have resulted just from eye movements. Therefore, a control experiment was run in which display duration was limited to 150 ms. The results of this experiment showed that, even when eye movements were prevented, the search still occurred ‘serially’, ie response time increased as a function of the number of possible target positions.

scholarly journals Neural Dynamics of Cognitive Control over Working Memory Capture of Attention

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (7) ◽  
pp. 1079-1090 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter S. Whitehead ◽  
Mathilde M. Ooi ◽  
Tobias Egner ◽  
Marty G. Woldorff
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Search Display ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
High Temporal Resolution ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Attentional Orienting ◽  
Behavioral Studies

The contents of working memory (WM) guide visual attention toward matching features, with visual search being faster when the target and a feature of an item held in WM spatially overlap (validly cued) than when they occur at different locations (invalidly cued). Recent behavioral studies have indicated that attentional capture by WM content can be modulated by cognitive control: When WM cues are reliably helpful to visual search (predictably valid), capture is enhanced, but when reliably detrimental (predictably invalid), capture is attenuated. The neural mechanisms underlying this effect are not well understood, however. Here, we leveraged the high temporal resolution of ERPs time-locked to the onset of the search display to determine how and at what processing stage cognitive control modulates the search process. We manipulated predictability by grouping trials into unpredictable (50% valid/invalid) and predictable (100% valid, 100% invalid) blocks. Behavioral results confirmed that predictability modulated WM-related capture. Comparison of ERPs to the search arrays showed that the N2pc, a posteriorly distributed signature of initial attentional orienting toward a lateralized target, was not impacted by target validity predictability. However, a longer latency, more anterior, lateralized effect—here, termed the “contralateral attention-related negativity”—was reduced under predictable conditions. This reduction interacted with validity, with substantially greater reduction for invalid than valid trials. These data suggest cognitive control over attentional capture by WM content does not affect the initial attentional-orienting process but can reduce the need to marshal later control mechanisms for processing relevant items in the visual world.

scholarly journals Automatic Guidance (and Misguidance) of Visuospatial Attention by Acquired Scene Memory: Evidence From an N1pc Polarity Reversal

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (12) ◽  
pp. 1531-1543
Author(s):  
Artyom Zinchenko ◽  
Markus Conci ◽  
Thomas Töllner ◽  
Hermann J. Müller ◽  
Thomas Geyer
Keyword(s):  
Target Location ◽  
Fixed Position ◽  
Contextual Cuing ◽  
Attentional Guidance ◽  
Initial Learning ◽  
Early Posterior Negativity ◽  
Amplitude Increase ◽  
Automatic Guidance ◽  
Original Target ◽  
Electroencephalogram Eeg

Visual search is facilitated when the target is repeatedly encountered at a fixed position within an invariant (vs. randomly variable) distractor layout—that is, when the layout is learned and guides attention to the target, a phenomenon known as contextual cuing. Subsequently changing the target location within a learned layout abolishes contextual cuing, which is difficult to relearn. Here, we used lateralized event-related electroencephalogram (EEG) potentials to explore memory-based attentional guidance ( N = 16). The results revealed reliable contextual cuing during initial learning and an associated EEG-amplitude increase for repeated layouts in attention-related components, starting with an early posterior negativity (N1pc, 80–180 ms). When the target was relocated to the opposite hemifield following learning, contextual cuing was effectively abolished, and the N1pc was reversed in polarity (indicative of persistent misguidance of attention to the original target location). Thus, once learned, repeated layouts trigger attentional-priority signals from memory that proactively interfere with contextual relearning after target relocation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document