Abstract
Visual search is typically studied by requiring participants to memorize a template initially, for which they subsequently search in a crowded display. Search in daily life, however, often involves templates that remain accessible externally, and may therefore be (re)attended for just-in-time encoding or to boost internal template representations. Here, we show that participants indeed use external templates during search when given the chance. This behavior was observed during both simple and complex search, scaled with task difficulty, and was associated with improved performance. We conclude that the external world may not only provide the challenge (e.g., distractors), but may dynamically ease search. These results argue for the extension of state-of-the-art models of search, as external sampling seems to be the default option and is actually beneficial for behavior. Our findings support a model of visual working memory that emphasizes a resource-efficient trade-off between storing and (re)accessing external information.