Visual search for high‐level configural differences as well as low‐level critical features is highly efficient early in childhood

Abstract

Visual search, or the ability to locate a single target from a field of distractors, is used as a means of assessing the capacity of the visual system with regard to the detection of low-level stimulus dimensions such as color, line orientation, and other specific perceptual features and higher level characteristics such as three-dimensional (3-D) orientation implied by pictorial cues to depth or occlusion. Target-distractor differences of importance to the visual system result in rapid (and possibly preattentive) target location while differences of lesser importance (or differences that are less salient) tend to elicit slower, less efficient search performance (search in this latter case may require attentional resources.) Adult abilities in this type of task have been tested extensively, but comparatively little is known about the development of these abilities. The present investigation was conducted to test, across a range of ages in childhood, the ability to detect visual search targets defined by a low-level critical feature (a texton; B. Julesz, 1981) and by static (pictorial) cues to depth. Children 2 to 9 years of age and adults were tested with each type of target. Previous data from infant studies predicted that the texton-defined differences would elicit highly efficient search performance, and this proved to be the case. When no texton difference was present, however, children's search was highly inefficient. Children between 4 to 9 years of age also proved to be quite efficient at locating a target, differing only by a pictorially rendered 3-D orientation from the distractors, but were much less efficient when the static cues to 3-D orientation were removed. These findings confirm previous reports that the basic processes underlying visual search are functional early in development, but suggest that children's search is less efficient than adult search when attention is required for object localization.

From features to dimensions: cognitive and motor development in pop-out search in children and young adults

“…Based on additive factors logic, comparing search RTs and simple detection RTs allows for the isolation of effects due to cognitive development and those of sensory-motor maturation. As already observed in previous studies, search RTs decreased with increasing age (Trick and Enns, 1998; Gerhardstein et al, 2001; Gerhardstein and Rovee-Collier, 2002; Adler and Orprecio, 2006; Donnelly et al, 2007). In the present study, significant RT decreases were observed between the groups of 6- and 8-year-olds, 8- and 10-year-olds, 10- and 12-year-olds, and 14- and 16-year-olds.…”

“…In line with the results of previous studies (Trick and Enns, 1998; Gerhardstein et al, 2001; Gerhardstein and Rovee-Collier, 2002; Donnelly et al, 2007) RTs were expected to decrease with increasing age. However, as suggested by Donnelly et al (2007), if RTs are affected by newly developing cognitive skills (such as the ability to rely target detection responses on the presence of salience peaks rather than the matches between features and templates), RTs, in addition to sensory-motor maturation, are also expected to be modulated by the different cognitive processes invoked to solve the search task in participants aged 6-years relative to participants aged 8 and older.…”

“…By contrast, in participants of the groups of 10- and 12-, and 14- and 16-year-olds, the expedition of RTs is due to the development of search-related, that is, cognitive processes. Critically, and in contrast to the assumptions of some previous studies (Trick and Enns, 1998; Gerhardstein et al, 2001; Gerhardstein and Rovee-Collier, 2002; Adler and Orprecio, 2006), but in line with Donnelly et al (2007), the present results show that cognitive development also occurs between the 6- and the 8-year-olds, which might (at least partially) be explained by the development of categorization skills. According to models of visual search such as the DW account (Müller et al, 1995; Found and Müller, 1996; see also Krummenacher and Müller, 2012) RTs in the age group of the 6-year olds were slower than in the other groups, because they obligatorily accessed the level of feature representations while participants of older age groups relied on the existence of a salience signal.…”

“…The main objective of the present experiment was to investigate the role of developing cognitive processes within the context of the overall search performance improvement with increasing age which has been observed in a number of studies (Trick and Enns, 1998; Gerhardstein et al, 2001; Gerhardstein and Rovee-Collier, 2002; Donnelly et al, 2007). In particular, it was proposed that the ability to abstract specific visual features into feature categories or dimensions would contribute significantly to an expedition of RTs in visual search for targets differing from distractors by a salient feature.…”

“…Importantly, at least part of the performance improvement is due to the development of cognitive skills related to the reduction (categorization) of visual features into feature categories. The latter conclusion is exciting in that it represents a novel interpretation of improvements of search efficiency as a function of age which had exclusively been attributed to ongoing sensory-motor maturation resulting from the completion of the myelination of sensory and motor pathways (e.g., Trick and Enns, 1998; Gerhardstein et al, 2001; Gerhardstein and Rovee-Collier, 2002; see Adler and Orprecio, 2006, who used the sensory-motor maturation argument to explain longer saccade latencies in infants relative to adults).…”