Stimulus-determined discrimination mechanisms for color search

Visual attention can be goal driven, stimulus driven, or a combination of the two. Here we report evidence for an unexpectedly stimulus-driven component of visual search for a target defined by color. Observers demonstrated a surprisingly cost-free ability to incorporate multiple classifiers in sear...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perception & psychophysics 1999-08, Vol.61 (6), p.1038-1045
Main Authors: OLDS, E. S, COWAN, W. B, JOLICOEUR, P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Color Perception
Depth Perception
Discrimination Learning
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychophysics
Reaction Time
Vision
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Summary:Visual attention can be goal driven, stimulus driven, or a combination of the two. Here we report evidence for an unexpectedly stimulus-driven component of visual search for a target defined by color. Observers demonstrated a surprisingly cost-free ability to incorporate multiple classifiers in search for a target of one color from among distractors of other colors. A target color was presented among distractors that could change from trial to trial (intermixed presentation) or that remained constant across all trials in a block (blocked presentation). For blocked presentation, a single search classifier (a mechanism that segregates the target from distractors in color space) could be adopted, whereas for intermixed presentation different classifiers had to be used when the distractor colors changed. The benefit of blocked presentation was very small, suggesting that the appropriate classifier was determined very quickly in trials for which the classifier changed. The results suggest that the stimulus-driven activation of an appropriate stimulus classifier can be very efficient.
ISSN:0031-5117
1532-5962
DOI:10.3758/BF03207611