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The paper discusses the study of voluntary visual attention (VVA), a relatively new area of active experimentation. VVA concerns "natural" viewing behavior or visual browsing when the subject is under no constraints regarding the distribution of attention. This is contrasted with traditional studies of directed visual attention, such as the typical study of visual judgment in tachistoscopic research. Discussed are (1) the logic of investigating VVA, (2) a comprehensive set of constructs that are thought to be of theoretical importance, (3) methods for calibrating these variables in terms of treatment parameters, (4) the logic of scaling both independent and dependent variables, (5) a summary of salient findings, (6) some recent findings not previously reported, and (7) an overview of the psychometric issues in the study of VVA.

A consistent finding in the literature concerning visual selection is that subjects spend more time viewing unfamiliar stimuli than familiar stimuli. In the present investigation a procedure to measure competitive viewing times to familiar and unfamiliar stimuli was used. Results of the analyses of viewing times showed that the magnitude of the familiarity effect was a positive function of the duration of stimulus pre-exposure. In addition no differences were found in subjects' "preference" for familial and unfamiliar stimuli as measured by "like-disliked" ratings.

In two experiments viewing times were measured while Ss looked at random geometric forms. Stimuli were constructed to represent increasing levels of complexity. In both experiments, the relationship between level of stimulus complexity and viewing time was monotonic and increasing. The results are interpreted as supporting a meaning-processing model of visual exploration rather than theories concerning optimal levels of stimulation.

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