Nuthmann Antje, Malcolm George L
J Vis. 2016;16(2):3. doi: 10.1167/16.2.3.
The visual system utilizes environmental features to direct gaze efficiently when locating objects. While previous research has isolated various features' contributions to gaze guidance, these studies generally used sparse displays and did not investigate how features facilitated search as a function of their location on the visual field. The current study investigated how features across the visual field--particularly color--facilitate gaze guidance during real-world search. A gaze-contingent window followed participants' eye movements, restricting color information to specified regions. Scene images were presented in full color, with color in the periphery and gray in central vision or gray in the periphery and color in central vision, or in grayscale. Color conditions were crossed with a search cue manipulation, with the target cued either with a word label or an exact picture. Search times increased as color information in the scene decreased. A gaze-data based decomposition of search time revealed color-mediated effects on specific subprocesses of search. Color in peripheral vision facilitated target localization, whereas color in central vision facilitated target verification. Picture cues facilitated search, with the effects of cue specificity and scene color combining additively. When available, the visual system utilizes the environment's color information to facilitate different real-world visual search behaviors based on the location within the visual field.
视觉系统在定位物体时利用环境特征来有效地引导目光。虽然先前的研究已经分离出各种特征对目光引导的贡献，但这些研究通常使用稀疏显示，并且没有研究特征如何根据其在视野中的位置来促进搜索。当前的研究调查了整个视野中的特征——特别是颜色——在现实世界搜索中如何促进目光引导。一个目光相关窗口跟随参与者的眼球运动，将颜色信息限制在特定区域。场景图像以全彩色呈现，外周为彩色而中央视觉为灰色，或者外周为灰色而中央视觉为彩色，或者以灰度呈现。颜色条件与搜索线索操作交叉，目标用文字标签或精确图片进行提示。随着场景中颜色信息的减少，搜索时间增加。基于目光数据的搜索时间分解揭示了颜色对搜索特定子过程的介导作用。外周视觉中的颜色促进目标定位，而中央视觉中的颜色促进目标验证。图片线索促进搜索，线索特异性和场景颜色的效果相加。当可用时，视觉系统利用环境的颜色信息，根据在视野中的位置促进不同的现实世界视觉搜索行为。
