Elsevier

Vision Research

Volume 46, Issue 24, November 2006, Pages 4118-4133
Vision Research

Real-world visual search is dominated by top-down guidance

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2006.08.008Get rights and content
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Abstract

How do bottom-up and top-down guidance signals combine to guide search behavior? Observers searched for a target either with or without a preview (top-down manipulation) or a color singleton (bottom-up manipulation) among the display objects. With a preview, reaction times were faster and more initial eye movements were guided to the target; the singleton failed to attract initial saccades under these conditions. Only in the absence of a preview did subjects preferentially fixate the color singleton. We conclude that the search for realistic objects is guided primarily by top-down control. Implications for saliency map models of visual search are discussed.

Keywords

Top-down guidance
Bottom-up guidance
Real-world objects
Attention capture
Color singletons
Saliency maps
Eye movements
Overt visual search

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