An investigation of linear separability in visual search for color suggests a role of recognizability.

Kong, Garry; Alais, David; Burg, Erik Van der

doi:10.1037/xhp0000249

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…However, at least for the orientation dimension, it is known that a same-dimension distractor causes massive interference (via attentional capture) even when it is consistently tilted in the opposite direction to the target, thus allowing for differential relational coding of target and distractor . Similarly, the distractor in was linearly separable from the target (see Bauer, Jolicoeur, & Cowan, 1996a,b;Daoutis, Pilling, & Davies, 2006;Kong, Alais, & van der Burg, 2016), as non-targets had an intermediate value (e.g., -45° distractor, 0° non-targets, and +12° target). In general, it is somewhat difficult to discriminate between predictions from the relational-coding and linear-separability accounts from that of the DWA, because it is unclear what the dimensional structure of saliency-computation mechanisms is.…”

Section: Relational Coding and Linear Separabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Distractor-interference reduction is dimensionally constrained

Liesefeld

Müller

2019

Visual Cognition

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The dimension-weighting account predicts that if observers search for a target standing out from the background in a particular dimension, they cannot readily ignore a distractor standing out in the same dimension. This prediction is tested here by asking two groups of observers to search for an orientation target or a luminance target, respectively, and presenting an additional distractor defined in either the respectively same dimension or the other dimension. Notably, in this cross-over design, the physically identical distractors served both as same-and different-dimension distractors, depending on target condition. While same-dimension distractors gave rise to massive interference, different-dimension distractors caused much weaker (though still substantial) interference. This result is most readily explained by the dimension-weighting account: different-dimension distractors are considerably downweighted but not fully suppressed. Furthermore, same-and different dimension distractors delayed response times even when considering only the fastest (down to 2.5%) of trials, indicating that interference is exerted consistently on each trial, rather than probabilistically on some trials. Our results put strong constraints on models of distractor handling in visual search.

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Section: Relational Coding and Linear Separabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Distractor-interference reduction is dimensionally constrained

Liesefeld

Müller

2019

Visual Cognition

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“…It is quite evident that in our hypothetical example search for a yellow target would be supported by up-weighting yellow-blue (b) and a red distractor is best ignored by downweighting red-green (a). Thus, red distractors can be sufficiently down-weighted to avoid attentional capture during search for yellow targets among green non-targets (Gaspar and McDonald 2014; for a related, though somewhat different, explanation, see the literature on linear separabilty; Bauer et al 1996a,b;Daoutis et al 2006;Kong et al 2016).…”

Section: Is Color Special?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Biasing Allocations of Attention via Selective Weighting of Saliency Signals: Behavioral and Neuroimaging Evidence for the Dimension-Weighting Account

Liesefeld

Pollmann

et al. 2018

Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences

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Objects that stand out from the environment tend to be of behavioral relevance and the visual system is tuned to preferably process these salient objects by allocating focused attention. However, attention is not just passively (bottom-up) driven by stimulus features, but previous experiences and task goals exert strong biases towards attending or actively ignoring salient objects. The core and eponymous assumption of the Dimension-Weighting Account (DWA) is that these top-down biases are not as flexible as one would like them to be; rather, they are subject to dimensional constraints. In particular, DWA assumes that people can often not search for objects that have a particular feature, but only for objects that stand out from the environment (i.e., that are salient) in a particular feature dimension. We review behavioral and neuroimaging evidence for such dimensional constraints in three areas: search history, voluntary target enhancement, and distractor handling. The first two have been the focus of research on DWA since its inception and the latter the subject of our more recent research. Additionally, we discuss various challenges to the DWA and its relation to other prominent theories on top-down influences in visual search.

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“…Given that there are only two parents for every child, only 2 of the 35 possible feature combinations could be accessed by that pair. If it makes sense to do so, a different encoding scheme could allow a pair of parents to access many more distractors combinations, e.g., in another of our studies [ 26 ], the distractors were encoded using a Gray code, allowing a pair to access on average half of the possible feature combinations in any pair.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competing Distractors Facilitate Visual Search in Heterogeneous Displays

2016

Self Cite

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In the present study, we examine how observers search among complex displays. Participants were asked to search for a big red horizontal line among 119 distractor lines of various sizes, orientations and colours, leading to 36 different feature combinations. To understand how people search in such a heterogeneous display, we evolved the search display by using a genetic algorithm (Experiment 1). The best displays (i.e., displays corresponding to the fastest reaction times) were selected and combined to create new, evolved displays. Search times declined over generations. Results show that items sharing the same colour and orientation as the target disappeared over generations, implying they interfered with search, but items sharing the same colour and were 12.5° different in orientation only interfered if they were also the same size. Furthermore, and inconsistent with most dominant visual search theories, we found that non-red horizontal distractors increased over generations, indicating that these distractors facilitated visual search while participants were searching for a big red horizontally oriented target. In Experiments 2 and 3, we replicated these results using conventional, factorial experiments. Interestingly, in Experiment 4, we found that this facilitation effect was only present when the displays were very heterogeneous. While current models of visual search are able to successfully describe search in homogeneous displays, our results challenge the ability of these models to describe visual search in heterogeneous environments.

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An investigation of linear separability in visual search for color suggests a role of recognizability.

Cited by 10 publications

References 47 publications

Distractor-interference reduction is dimensionally constrained

Distractor-interference reduction is dimensionally constrained

Biasing Allocations of Attention via Selective Weighting of Saliency Signals: Behavioral and Neuroimaging Evidence for the Dimension-Weighting Account

Competing Distractors Facilitate Visual Search in Heterogeneous Displays

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