Guidance of Visual Search by Memory and Knowledge
To behave intelligently in the world, humans must be able to find objects efficiently within the complex environments they inhabit. A growing proportion of the literature on visual search is devoted to understanding this type of natural search. In the pre
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Abstract To behave intelligently in the world, humans must be able to find objects efficiently within the complex environments they inhabit. A growing proportion of the literature on visual search is devoted to understanding this type of natural search. In the present chapter, I review the literature on visual search through natural scenes, focusing on the role of memory and knowledge in guiding attention to task-relevant objects. Keywords Visual search · Memory · Goal-directed vision · Natural scenes The laboratory study of visual search began as a means to an end. Early research used visual search as an experimental paradigm for probing perceptual efficiency in identification and selection (e.g., Schneider and Shiffrin 1977; Treisman and Gelade 1980). The purpose was not necessarily to understand how we find objects in natural scenes (where on earth did I leave my keys?) but rather to isolate the mechanisms that enable humans to select goal-relevant items in the presence of perceptual competition. The visual search paradigm has become indispensable to the study of attention and has been applied in research ranging from the single unit study of neurons in the superior colliculus (e.g., McPeek and Keller 2002) to the study of individual differences in psychopathology (see Weierich et al. 2008). Over the last 10–15 years, however, a large and growing proportion of the research on visual search has been devoted to understanding how we find goal-relevant objects within the types of complex environments that comprise daily life. Several of the chapters in the present volume are examples of this trend. How we find objects in scenes is one of the central topics a science of cognition must address, because finding objects efficiently is essential for everyday behavior. Consider the activity of making tea discussed by Land et al. (1999). Making tea requires the sequential selection and use of several different objects, and they must be selected in a particular sequence defined by the task. The tea kettle must be found to fill it with water. A cup must be located, and then the tea bags are needed to place one in the cup. Milk is required later in the task, as is sugar, and a spoon A. Hollingworth () Department of Psychology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA e-mail: [email protected]
M. D. Dodd, J. H. Flowers (eds.), The Influence of Attention, Learning, and Motivation on Visual Search, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-4794-8_4, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
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must be found to measure the sugar and stir it into the liquid. The objects in a scene cannot be perceived simultaneously, so each of these component operations requires visual search for a particular target object. Moreover, the goal of search and the representation of the relevant target must evolve as the sub-goals of the task change. For example, the template specifying the relevant target object must switch at some point from representing features of the sugar bowl to feat
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