Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
6203547 Vision Research 2014 11 Pages PDF
Abstract

•We investigated how belonging to an ignored slanted surface impacted preview search.•Search efficiency decreased when a new target appeared in an old surface.•When two old surfaces were present, search was more difficult for targets in the surface composed of the majority of items.•Costs for targets appearing in an old majority surface were abolished when stereoscopic 3-D cues were removed.•3-D stereoscopic slanted surfaces constrain the deployment of inhibitory mechanisms in search.

In preview search when an observer ignores an early appearing set of distractors, there can subsequently be impeded detection of new targets that share the colour of this preview. This “negative carry-over effect” has been attributed to an active inhibitory process targeted against the old items and inadvertently their features. Here we extend negative carry-over effects to the case of stereoscopically defined surfaces of coplanar elements without common features. In Experiment 1 observers previewed distractors in one surface (1000 ms), before being presented with the target and new distractors divided over the old and a new surface either above or below the old one. Participants were slower and less efficient to detect targets in the old surface. In Experiment 2 in both the first and second display the items were divided over two planes in the proportion 66/33% such that no new planes appeared following the preview, and there was no majority of items in any one plane in the final combined display. The results showed that participants were slower to detect the target when it occurred in the old majority surface. Experiment 3 held constant the 2D properties of the stimuli while varying the presence of binocular depth cues. The carry-over effect only occurred in the presence of binocular depth cues, ruling out any account of the results in terms of 2-D cues. The results suggest well formed surfaces in addition to simple features may be targets for inhibition in search.

Related Topics
Life Sciences Neuroscience Sensory Systems
Authors
, , , ,