Conspicuity is task dependent: Evidence from selective search
report
Two visual search experiments were conducted to investigate whether a highly salient stimulus difference automatically attracts spatial attention to its location. Experiment 1 showed that an item unique in form does not automatically draw attention to its location, but that attention could actively be directed to the location of the unique item when such focussing is beneficial for the search task at hand. Experiment 2 revealed that a form change of an item during presentation of the entire stimulus field automatically seizes attention to the source of change. This study suggests that attention is only automatically drawn to an item when temporal discontinuity makes it salient. It shows that automatic attention attraction cannot longer be considered as a fundamental property of conspicuity.
TNO Identifier
6875
Publisher
TNO
Place of publication
Soesterberg
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