The status of ‘intersection’ as a basic feature in visual search tasks has been controversial. Under some circumstances, a target possessing this attribute (eg a plus) ‘pops out’ of a display of distractors that lack the attribute (eg Ls). However, those cases may be artifacts of other features such as relative size or number of line terminators. We report two sets of experiments with stimuli intended to control for these factors. Search for the presence or absence of intersections is very inefficient with these stimuli. The results suggest that intersection should not be included among the list of salient features that support efficient search through visual displays.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BeckJ, 1966a“Effect of orientation and shape similarity on perceptual grouping”Perception & Psychophysics1300–302
2.
BeckJ, 1966b“Perceptual grouping produced by changes in orientation and shape”Science154538–540
3.
BergenJ RAdelsonE H, 1988“Early vision and texture perception”Nature333363–364
4.
BergenJ RJuleszB, 1983“Rapid discrimination of visual patterns”IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and CyberneticsSMC-13857–863
5.
BilskyA AWolfeJ M, 1995“Part–whole information is useful in size x size but not in orientation x orientation conjunction searches”Perception & Psychophysics57749–760
6.
BundesenCPedersenL F, 1983“Color segregation and visual search”Perception & Psychophysics33487–493
7.
CarterR C, 1982“Visual search with color”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance8127–136
8.
CavanaghPArguinMTreismanA, 1990“Effect of surface medium on visual search for orientation and size features”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance16479–492
9.
ChenL, 1982“Topological structure in visual perception”Science218699–700
10.
ChenLZhouW, 1997“Holes in illusory conjunctions”Psychonomic Bulletin and Review4507–511
11.
CohenAIvryR B, 1991“Density effects in conjunction search: Evidence for coarse location mechanisms of feature integration”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance17891–901
12.
DiLolloVKawaharaJ-IZuvicS MVisserT A W, 2001“The preattentive emperor has no clothes: a dynamic redressing”Journal of Experimental Psychology: General130479–492
13.
DonderiD CZelnickerD, 1969“Parallel processing in visual same–different decisions”Perception & Psychophysics5197–200
14.
DuncanJHumphreysG W, 1989“Visual search and stimulus similarity”Psychological Review96433–458
15.
DuncanJHumphreysG W, 1992“Beyond the search surface: Visual search and attentional engagement”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance18578–588
16.
D'ZmuraM, 1991“Color in visual search”Vision Research31951–966
17.
ElderJZuckerS, 1994“A measure of closure”Vision Research343361–3369
18.
EastwoodJ DSmilekDMerikleP M, 2001“Differential attentional guidance by unattended faces expressing positive and negative emotion”Perception & Psychophysics631004–1013
19.
FarmerE WTaylorR M, 1980“Visual search through color displays: Effects of target–background similarity and background uniformity”Perception & Psychophysics27267–272
20.
FosterD HWardP A, 1991“Asymmetries in oriented-line detection indicate two orthogonal filters in early vision”Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B24375–81
21.
GreenB FAndersonL K, 1956“Color coding in a visual search task”Journal of Experimental Psychology5119–24
22.
IsenbergLNissenM JMarchakL C, 1990“Attentional processing and the independence of color and shape”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance14869–878
23.
JuleszBBergenJ R, 1983“Textons, the fundamental elements in preattentive vision and perceptions of textures”The Bell Systems Technical Journal621619–1646
24.
JuleszBKroseB, 1988“Features and spatial filters”Nature333302–303
25.
KimchiR, 1994“The role of wholistic/configural properties versus global properties in visual form perception”Perception23489–504
26.
MoragliaG, 1989“Display organization and the detection of horizontal line segments”Perception & Psychophysics45265–272
27.
MoragliaGMaloneyK PFeketeE MAl-BasiK, 1989“Visual search along the color dimension”Canadian Journal of Psychology431–12
28.
MüllerH JHellerDZieglerJ, 1995“Visual search for singleton feature targets within and across feature dimensions”Perception & Psychophysics571–17
29.
NakayamaKJosephJ S, 1998“Attention, pattern recognition and popout in visual search”, in The Attentive Brain Ed. ParasuramanR (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) pp 279–298
30.
NavonD, 1977“Forest before the trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception”Cognitive Psychology9353–383
31.
NeisserU, 1967Cognitive Psychology (New York: Appleton, Century, Crofts)
32.
NothdurftH-C, 1993“Faces and facial expressions do not pop out”Perception221287–1298
33.
OliversC N LVan der HelmP A, 1998“Symmetry and selective attention: A task comparison”Perception & Psychophysics601101–1116
34.
PurcellD GStewartA LSkovR B, 1996“It takes a confounded face to pop out of a crowd”Perception251091–1108
35.
QuinlanP THumphreysG W, 1987“Visual search for targets defined by combinations of color, shape, and size: An examination of the task constraints on feature and conjunction searches”Perception & Psychophysics41455–472
36.
SmithS L, 1962“Color coding and visual search”Journal of Experimental Psychology64434–440
37.
StefurakD LBoyntonR M, 1986“Independence of memory for categorically different colors and shapes”Perception & Psychophysics39164–174
38.
StuartG W, 1993“Preattentive processing of object size: Implications for theories of size perception”Perception221175–1193
39.
SuzukiSCavanaghP, 1995“Facial organization blocks access to low-level features: An object inferiority effect”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance21901–913
40.
TaylorSBadcockD, 1988“Processing feature density in preattentive perception”Perception & Psychophysics44551–562
41.
TheeuwesJKooiJ L, 1994“Parallel search for a conjunction of shape and contrast polarity”Vision Research343013–3016
42.
TianaCLenniePD'ZmuraM, 1989“Parallel search for color/shape and color/motion conjunctions”Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Supplement30252
43.
TreismanAGeladeG, 1980“A feature-integration theory of attention”Cognitive Psychology1297–136
44.
TreismanAGormicanS, 1988“Feature analysis in early vision: Evidence from search asymmetries”Psychological Review9515–48
45.
TreismanASoutherJ, 1985“Search asymmetry: A diagnostic for preattentive processing of separable features”Journal of Experimental Psychology: General114285–310
46.
TsalYLavieN, 1988“Attending to color and shape: The special role of location in selective visual processing”Perception & Psychophysics4415–21
47.
Van OrdenK F, 1993“Redundant use of luminance and flashing with shape and color as highlighting codes in symbolic displays”Human Factors35195–204
48.
WolfeJ M, 1992“‘Effortless’ texture segmentation and ‘parallel’ visual search are not the same thing”Vision Research32757–763
49.
WolfeJ M, 1998a“Visual search”, in Attention Ed. PashlerH (Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press) pp 13–74
50.
WolfeJ M, 1998b“What do 1,000,000 trials tell us about visual search?”Psychological Science933–39
51.
WolfeJ M, 2000“Visual attention”, in Seeing2nd edition Ed. De ValoisK K (San Diego, CA: Academic Press) pp 335–386
52.
WolfeJ M, 2001“Asymmetries in visual search: An introduction”Perception & Psychophysics63381–389
53.
WolfeJ MFriedman-HillS R, 1992“On the role of symmetry in visual search”Psychological Science3194–198
54.
WolfeJ MFriedman-HillS RStewartM IO'ConnellK M, 1992“The role of categorization in visual search for orientation”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance1834–49
55.
ZelinskyG JSheinbergD L, 1997“Eye movements during parallel/serial visual search”Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance23244–262
