Citation

Treisman A, Sato S. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 1990; 16(3): 459-478.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley 94720.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2144564

Abstract

Search for conjunctions of highly discriminable features can be rapid or even parallel. This article explores three possible accounts based on (a) perceptual segregation, (b) conjunction detectors, and (c) inhibition controlled separately by two or more distractor features. Search rates for conjunctions of color, size, orientation, and direction of motion correlated closely with an independent measure of perceptual segregation. However, they appeared unrelated to the physiology of single-unit responses. Each dimension contributed additively to conjunction search rates, suggesting that each was checked independently of the others. Unknown targets appear to be found only by serial search for each in turn. Searching through 4 sets of distractors was slower than searching through 2. The results suggest a modification of feature integration theory, in which attention is controlled not only by a unitary "window" but also by a form of feature-based inhibition.

Language: en