Abstract
Previous research (Rappaport, Humphreys, & Riddoch, in press) has suggested that objects automatically co-activate the colour habitually assigned to them, such that a difficult search for an object in its familiar colour is quicker and more efficient than when its colour is unfamiliar. We investigate how cueing the colour of the target interacts with this search advantage. Uncued search for a shape singleton (a yellow or purple coloured corn target amongst aubergine distractors, half of which were yellow, half purple) was followed by cued trials in which the target colour was predicted at 80% validity. In the uncued block, search was faster and more efficient when the search-irrelevant colour of the target was familiar. Following this, valid cues facilitated search while invalid cues slowed RTs, but only the slope for targets in incorrect colours was affected. Eye-tracking data indicated that, on uncued search, participants frequently fixated distractors with the familiar colour of the target, while more initial eye movements were directed to targets carrying their familiar rather than an unfamiliar colour. In contrast, cues directed first fixations to items with the cued colour. Despite this, there was no effect on the efficiency of search for an uncued target carrying its familiar colour. The data are consistent with attention being attracted in a bottom-up manner to targets in their correct colour, along with target identification being facilitated to correctly coloured objects.
Rappaport, S. J., Humphreys, G. W., & Riddoch, M. J. (in press). The Attraction of Yellow Corn: Evidence for Spatially Parallel Binding of Learned Conjunctive Relations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2013