The role of categorical cues on target template formation in visual search

Abstract

Visual search is a critical skill that is impacted by a target’s physical traits and a viewer’s prior knowledge of what those traits are. An open question in visual search concerns the nature of the target template, an internal cognitive representation of the target one is searching for and that is used to guide search. Target templates are created from knowledge about the target; in research settings this information is typically conferred to a searcher in the form of a cue. A more detailed target template is known to lead to the best search, but how a cue that lacks specific or accurate details forms a target template is not well explored. The current study examines how categorical cues impact target template creation, specifically aiming to resolve the controversy of whether and under what conditions a word cue can perform as well as an image cue. Participants searched for real world objects in an array, cued by various pictures or words. In Experiment 1, participants experienced written and auditory label cues in addition to exact target previews and visually similar image (type picture) cues; type picture cues performed significantly better than either of the word cues, which did not differ from each other. In Experiment 2, a specific label condition was added and visually heterogenous type picture cues were used. The specific auditory label resulted in reduced search times compared to basic labels and the new type cues. These results highlight the importance of specificity in target template creation and demonstrate constraints under which some verbal cues can be more effective than image cues.