Color Channels, Not Color Appearance or Color Categories, Guide Visual Search for Desaturated Color Targets

In this article, we report that in visual search, desaturated reddish targets are much easier to find than other desaturated targets, even when perceptual differences between targets and distractors are carefully equated. Observers searched for desaturated targets among mixtures of white and saturat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2010-09, Vol.21 (9), p.1208-1214
Main Authors: Lindsey, Delwin T., Brown, Angela M., Reijnen, Ester, Rich, Anina N., Kuzmova, Yoana I., Wolfe, Jeremy M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Circles
Color
Color Perception
Color vision
Colors
Colour
Distraction
Humans
Linear separability
Luminance
Medical research
Mixtures
Modeling
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Perception
Photic Stimulation
Range searching
Reaction Time
Research Reports
Search terms
Signs
Skin
Space Perception
Specialization
Stimuli
Visual perception
Visual task performance
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Summary:In this article, we report that in visual search, desaturated reddish targets are much easier to find than other desaturated targets, even when perceptual differences between targets and distractors are carefully equated. Observers searched for desaturated targets among mixtures of white and saturated distractors. Reaction times were hundreds of milliseconds faster for the most effective (reddish) targets than for the least effective (purplish) targets. The advantage for desaturated reds did not reflect an advantage for the lexical category "pink," because reaction times did not follow named color categories. Many pink stimuli were not found quickly, and many quickly found stimuli were not labeled "pink." Other possible explanations (e.g., linear-separability effects) also failed. Instead, we propose that guidance of visual search for desaturated colors is based on a combination of low-level color-opponent signals that is different from the combinations that produce perceived color. We speculate that this guidance might reflect a specialization for human skin.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797610379861