Citation

Ort E, Fahrenfort JJ, Olivers CNL. Psychol. Sci. 2017; 28(8): 1137-1147.

Affiliation

Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Institute for Brain and Behaviour, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797617705667

PMID

28661761

Abstract

It is debated whether people can actively search for more than one object or whether this results in switch costs. Using a gaze-contingent eye-tracking paradigm, we revealed a crucial role for cognitive control in multiple-target search. We instructed participants to simultaneously search for two target objects presented among distractors. In one condition, both targets were available, which gave the observer free choice of what to search for and allowed for proactive control. In the other condition, only one of the two targets was available, so that the choice was imposed, and a reactive mechanism would be required. No switch costs emerged when target choice was free, but switch costs emerged reliably when targets were imposed. Bridging contradictory findings, the results are consistent with models of visual selection in which only one attentional template actively drives selection and in which the efficiency of switching targets depends on the type of cognitive control allowed for by the environment.

Language: en

Keywords

attentional template; cognitive control; eye movements; open data; open materials; visual attention; visual search