Abstract
The visual search is guided by a target template held in a working memory (Duncan & Humphreys, 1989). In the real-world visual search tasks objects belong to the categories. For some of those categories we have labels, for others we have no labels. In this study we investigate the role of the categorical labels in target template’s functioning during visual search performance. We suppose that the verbal label is tightly connected with the perceptual features of a particular category. So, the label is also included in a target template and helps to retain it in the working memory (through the phonological loop repetition). So, we hypothesized that in a verbal interference condition search time for targets with labels would be longer than for targets without labels. While in no interference condition a search time for targets with and without labels wouldn’t be different. As the stimuli we used eight categories of a butterflies. Four of them were provided by the artificial meaningless labels. We used 2 ˣ 3 ˣ 2 mixed design with Category label (yes/no) and Set size (4, 6, 8 items) as within-group factors and Condition (verbal interference/no interference) as between-group factor. The categories were acquired on a first stage of experiment by a classification task. In the interference condition participants were asked to repeat a meaningless syllable (kyl) during visual search. Due to coronavirus we have collected data only for the no interference condition group (Twenty participants (14 women) aged 18-37 (M= 22.5)). Our results shows that Set size significantly influenced reaction time F(2,38)=70.58, p< 0.0001, while Target type and interaction of the factors were not significant. Those results indicate that our stimuli could be used for the experiment. Despite complexity of the stimuli none of those categories significantly different from others.