Glavan Joseph J, Haggit Jordan M, Houpt Joseph W
Department of Psychology, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, 45435, USA.
TiER1 Performance Solutions, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2020 Feb;82(2):426-456. doi: 10.3758/s13414-019-01863-9.
The mechanisms guiding visual attention are of great interest within cognitive and perceptual psychology. Many researchers have proposed models of these mechanisms, which serve to both formalize their theories and to guide further empirical investigations. The assumption that a number of basic features are processed in parallel early in the attentional process is common among most models of visual attention and visual search. To date, much of the evidence for parallel processing has been limited to set-size manipulations. Unfortunately, set-size manipulations have been shown to be insufficient evidence for parallel processing. We applied Systems Factorial Technology, a general nonparametric framework, to test this assumption, specifically whether color and shape are processed in parallel or in serial, in three experiments representative of feature search, conjunctive search, and odd-one-out search, respectively. Our results provide strong evidence that color and shape information guides search through parallel processes. Furthermore, we found evidence for facilitation between color and shape when the target was known in advance but performance consistent with unlimited capacity, independent parallel processing in odd-one-out search. These results confirm core assumptions about color and shape feature processing instantiated in most models of visual search and provide more detailed clues about the manner in which color and shape information is combined to guide search.
在认知和感知心理学领域，引导视觉注意力的机制备受关注。许多研究人员提出了这些机制的模型，这些模型既有助于将他们的理论形式化，又能指导进一步的实证研究。在大多数视觉注意力和视觉搜索模型中，一个常见的假设是，在注意力过程的早期，一些基本特征是并行处理的。迄今为止，许多关于并行处理的证据都局限于集合大小操作。不幸的是，集合大小操作已被证明不足以作为并行处理的证据。我们应用系统因子技术（一种通用的非参数框架）来检验这一假设，具体而言，在分别代表特征搜索、联合搜索和异常项搜索的三个实验中，检验颜色和形状是并行处理还是串行处理。我们的结果提供了有力证据，表明颜色和形状信息通过并行过程引导搜索。此外，我们发现，当预先知道目标时，颜色和形状之间存在促进作用，但在异常项搜索中，表现与无限容量、独立并行处理一致。这些结果证实了大多数视觉搜索模型中关于颜色和形状特征处理的核心假设，并为颜色和形状信息如何结合以引导搜索提供了更详细的线索。
