Contextual cueing of pop-out visual search: When context guides the deployment of attention

• DOI: 10.1167/10.5.20
• Publication Date: 2010-06-03T12:59:14Z
• Authors: T. Geyer; M. Zehetleitner; H. J. Muller
• Keywords: Salience (neuroscience); Visual Search; Feature (linguistics); N2pc

Visual context information can guide attention in demanding (i.e., inefficient) search tasks. When participants are repeatedly presented with identically arranged ('repeated') displays, reaction times faster relative to newly composed ('non-repeated') displays. The present article examines whether this 'contextual cueing' effect operates also simple efficient) tasks and if so, there it influences target, rather than response, selection. results were that singleton-feature targets detected when the items repeated, non-repeated, arrangements. Importantly, novel, displays led an increase signal detection accuracy. Thus, contextual cueing expedite selection of pop-out targets, most likely by enhancing feature contrast signals at overall-salience computation stage.