Journal
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE
Volume 38, Issue 1, Pages 90-112Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/a0023894
Keywords
visual search; attention; learning; working memory
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health [R01 DC 004535-11]
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When observers search for a target object, they incidentally learn the identities and locations of background objects in the same display. This learning can facilitate search performance, eliciting faster reaction times for repeated displays. Despite these findings, visual search has been successfully modeled using architectures that maintain no history of attentional deployments; they are amnesic (e.g., Guided Search Theory). In the current study, we asked two questions: 1) under what conditions does such incidental learning occur? And 2) what does viewing behavior reveal about the efficiency of attentional deployments over time? In two experiments, we tracked eye movements during repeated visual search, and we tested incidental memory for repeated nontarget objects. Across conditions, the consistency of search sets and spatial layouts were manipulated to assess their respective contributions to learning. Using viewing behavior, we contrasted three potential accounts for faster searching with experience. The results indicate that learning does not result in faster object identification or greater search efficiency. Instead, familiar search arrays appear to allow faster resolution of search decisions, whether targets are present or absent.
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