Zhang Yichi Raven, Onyper Serge
Department of Psychology, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, 13617, USA.
University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2020 Jan;82(1):80-97. doi: 10.3758/s13414-019-01818-0.
Previous studies have shown that in visual search, varying the target and distractor familiarity produces a search asymmetry: Detecting a novel target among familiar distractors is more efficient than detecting a familiar target among novel distractors. One explanation is that novel targets have enhanced salience and are detected preattentively. Conversely, familiar distractors may be easier to reject. The current study postulates that target-distractor feature similarity, in addition to target or distractor familiarity, is a key determinant of visual search efficiency. The results of two experiments reveal that visual search is more efficient when distractors are familiar regardless of target familiarity, but only when the target-distractor similarity is high. When similarity is low, the visual search asymmetry disappears and the search times become highly efficient, with search slopes not different from zero regardless of target or distractor familiarity. However, although distractor familiarity plays an important role in inducing the search asymmetry, comparisons of search efficiency in target-present and target-absent trials reveal that search asymmetries cannot be explained solely by the faster speed of rejecting familiar distractors, as proposed by previous studies. Rather, distractor familiarity influences processes outside of stimulus selection, such as search monitoring and termination decisions. Competition among bottom-up item salience effects and top-down shape recognition processes is proposed to account for these findings.
先前的研究表明，在视觉搜索中，改变目标和干扰项的熟悉程度会产生搜索不对称性：在熟悉的干扰项中检测新目标比在新的干扰项中检测熟悉目标更有效。一种解释是，新目标具有更高的显著性，并且能够在注意力前被检测到。相反，熟悉的干扰项可能更容易被排除。当前的研究假设，除了目标或干扰项的熟悉程度外，目标-干扰项特征相似性是视觉搜索效率的关键决定因素。两项实验的结果表明，无论目标熟悉程度如何，当干扰项熟悉时，视觉搜索更有效，但前提是目标-干扰项相似性较高。当相似性较低时，视觉搜索不对称性消失，搜索时间变得高效，无论目标或干扰项熟悉程度如何，搜索斜率都与零无差异。然而，尽管干扰项熟悉程度在引发搜索不对称性方面起着重要作用，但对有目标和无目标试验中搜索效率的比较表明，搜索不对称性不能像先前研究所提出的那样，仅仅通过更快地排除熟悉干扰项的速度来解释。相反，干扰项熟悉程度会影响刺激选择之外的过程，如搜索监控和终止决策。研究提出，自下而上的项目显著性效应和自上而下的形状识别过程之间的竞争可以解释这些发现。
