Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Visual search can benefit when one set of distractors is presented as a preview, prior to the appearance of the second set of distractors plus the target (Watson & Humphreys, 1997). It has been shown that changing the shape of the old, previewed stimuli when the new items appear causes the old stimuli to recompete for selection with the new ones. In contrast, changing the luminance or color of the old stimuli has no detrimental effects. Here, we present five experiments that reassessed the effect of luminance changes in preview search. We show (1) that preview search is remarkably resistant to large changes in the absolute luminance of the old stimuli, even when those changes would ordinarily be sufficient to signal the appearance of a new object and draw attention (Experiments 1 and 2), and (2) that resistance to luminance changes can be bolstered by feature-based inhibitory processes (Experiments 3-5). These findings are discussed in terms of the possible ecological properties of time-based visual selection and possible mechanisms underlying the preview benefit.

Original publication

DOI

10.3758/PP.70.8.1526

Type

Journal article

Journal

Percept Psychophys

Publication Date

11/2008

Volume

70

Pages

1526 - 1539

Keywords

Adolescent, Adult, Female, Humans, Light, Male, Reaction Time, Visual Perception