Regardless of whether visual search is parallel or serial, it has been well documented that visual search could be aided by cues that engage spatial or feature-based selective attention. Spatial attention could increase the saliency of the objects in the attended location as well as guide eye movement, thereby facilitating the search performance (Bichot, Rossi, & Desimone,
2005; Egner et al.,
2008; Khurana & Kowler,
1987; Lu & Sperling,
1996; Luck, Chelazzi, Hillyard, & Desimone,
1997; Olds & Fockler,
2004; Posner, Snyder, & Davidson,
1980; Shih & Sperling,
1996). According to theories of feature-based attention, the processing of an attended feature is enhanced throughout the visual field, which makes searching for the object that possesses the attended feature easier and faster. Psychophysical studies have reported that visual search can be limited to a subset of the entire display on the basis of a particular feature (e.g., color, shape; Andersen et al.,
2008; Anderson et al.,
2010; Bacon & Egeth,
1997; Egeth, Virzi, & Garbart,
1984; Kaptein, Theeuwes, & Van der Heljden,
1995; Olds & Fockler,
2004; Olds et al.,
2009; Proulx,
2007; Zohary & Hochstein,
1989). Performance in visual search can also benefit from feature-based attention implicitly. Studies on priming effects indicated that visual search performance was facilitated if the to-be-searched targets shared the same feature as the targets in previous trials (Geyer, Shi, & Müller,
2010; Geyer, Zehetleitner, & Müller,
2010; Kristjánsson, Wang, & Nakayama,
2002; Maljkovic & Nakayama,
1994,
1996; Wolfe, Butcher, Lee, & Hyle,
2003).