Baier Diane, Ansorge Ulrich
Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Vision Res. 2019 Jul;160:43-51. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2019.02.016. Epub 2019 May 16.
To distinguish if search for alphanumerical characters is based on features or on conceptual category membership, we conducted two experiments where we presented upright and inverted characters as cues in a contingent-capture protocol. Here, only cues matching the top-down search template (e.g., a letter cue when searching for target letters) capture attention and lead to validity effects: shorter search times and fewer errors for validly than invalidly cued targets. Top-down nonmatching cues (e.g., a number cue when searching for target letters) do not capture attention. To tell a feature-based explanation from one based on conceptual category membership, we used both upright (canonical) and inverted characters as cues. These cues share the same features, but inverted cues cannot be conceptually categorized as easily as upright cues. Thus, we expected no difference between upright and inverted cues when search is feature-based, whereas inverted cues would elicit no or at least considerably weaker validity effects if search relies on conceptual category membership. Altogether, the results of both experiments (with overlapping and with separate sets of characters for cues and targets) provide evidence for search based on feature representations, as among other things, significant validity effects were found with upright and inverted characters as cues. However, an influence of category membership was also evident, as validity effects of inverted characters were diminished.
为了区分对字母数字字符的搜索是基于特征还是基于概念类别归属，我们进行了两项实验，在一个偶然捕获协议中，我们将正立和倒置的字符作为线索呈现。在这里，只有与自上而下的搜索模板匹配的线索（例如，在搜索目标字母时的字母线索）才能吸引注意力并导致有效性效应：有效线索提示的目标比无效线索提示的目标搜索时间更短且错误更少。自上而下的不匹配线索（例如，在搜索目标字母时的数字线索）不会吸引注意力。为了区分基于特征的解释和基于概念类别归属的解释，我们使用正立（标准）和倒置的字符作为线索。这些线索具有相同的特征，但倒置的线索在概念上不如正立的线索容易分类。因此，我们预计当搜索基于特征时，正立和倒置线索之间没有差异，而如果搜索依赖于概念类别归属，倒置线索将不会产生或至少会产生明显较弱的有效性效应。总的来说，两项实验的结果（线索和目标使用重叠字符集以及单独字符集）都为基于特征表征的搜索提供了证据，因为除其他外，以正立和倒置字符作为线索时发现了显著的有效性效应。然而，类别归属的影响也很明显，因为倒置字符的有效性效应减弱了。
