Although the use of semantic information about the world seems ubiquitous in every task we perform, it is not clear whether we rely on a scene's semantic information to guide attention when searching for something in a specific scene context (e.g., keys in one's living room). To address this question, we compared contribution of a scene's semantic information (i.e., scene gist) versus learned spatial associations between objects and context. Using the flash-previewmoving-window paradigm Castelhano and Henderson (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 33:753-763, 2007), participants searched for target objects that were placed in either consistent or inconsistent locations and were semantically consistent or inconsistent with the scene gist. The results showed that learned spatial associations were used to guide search even in inconsistent contexts, providing evidence that scene context can affect search performance without consistent scene gist information. We discuss the results in terms of hierarchical organization of top-down influences of scene context.

found that consistent target objects (e.g., a toaster in a kitchen) were fixated 1283© 2010 The Psychonomic Society, Inc. Many experiments have shown that knowing a target's visual features improves search performance over knowing the target name. Other experiments have shown that scene context can facilitate object search in natural scenes. In this study, we investigated how scene context and target features affect search performance. We examined two possible sources of information from scene context-the scene's gist and the visual details of the scene-and how they potentially interact with target-feature information. Prior to commencing search, participants were shown a scene and a target cue depicting either a picture or the category name (or no-information control). Using eye movement measures, we investigated how the target features and scene context influenced two components of search: early attentional guidance processes and later verification processes involved in the identification of the target. We found that both scene context and target features improved guidance, but that target features also improved speed of target recognition. Furthermore, we found that a scene's visual details played an important role in improving guidance, much more so than did the scene's gist alone.

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Intervention and prevention programs for peer aggression in schools have largely been constructed with the assumption that aggressive children will pay more attention to aggressive stimuli in their social environment. However, this hypothesis has never been tested with direct measures of attention. Thus, my honours thesis project is investigating how participants with a history of peer aggression involvement as a perpetrator or victim direct their attention in photographs depicting scenarios of peer aggression. Based on answers in a questionnaire, participants were divided into three groups: (1) those with a history of perpetrating peer aggression, (2) those with a history of being victimized by peer aggression and (3) those with no history of peer aggression involvement. The experimental study was conducted on an eyetracker, which measured where participants were looking as they viewed 48 photographs. The photographs depicted preadolescent children in scenes of group or peer‐to‐peer interactions that were either aggressive or non‐aggressive. I predict that those with a history of aggression will pay more attention to the aggressors in the scenes more often than those with a history of victimization or the control group. This investigation will give direct evidence regarding how attention in social scenes is affected by a history of peer aggression involvement. A better understanding of how attentional processes are affected by a history of peer aggression involvement will allow for the development of more effective intervention and prevention programs for peer aggression in schools.