Visual search and stimulus similarity.

@article{Duncan1989VisualSA,
  title={Visual search and stimulus similarity.},
  author={John Duncan and Glyn W. Humphreys},
  journal={Psychological review},
  year={1989},
  volume={96 3},
  pages={
          433-58
        }
}
A new theory of search and visual attention is presented. Results support neither a distinction between serial and parallel search nor between search for features and conjunctions. For all search materials, instead, difficulty increases with increased similarity of targets to nontargets and decreasedsimilarity between nontargets, producing a continuum of search efficiency. A parallel stage of perceptual grouping and description is followed by competitive interaction between inputs, guiding… 
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Boundary Conditions on Parallel Processing in Human Vision
TLDR
A new theory of visual search is tested experimentally with simple colour patches, showing that efficiency increases continuously with decreasing similarity between targets and nontargets, and increasing similarity between one nontarget and another.
Beyond the search surface: visual search and attentional engagement.
  • J. Duncan, G. Humphreys
  • Psychology
    Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
  • 1992
TLDR
Treisman (1991) described a series of visual search studies testing feature integration theory against an alternative (Duncan & Humphreys, 1989) in which feature and conjunction search are basically similar, finding that even when similarities were calibrated and controlled, conjunction search was much harder than feature search.
Grouping effects on spatial attention in visual search.
TLDR
Grouping processes aided search for a visual target by selecting groups of locations that shared a common feature, although there was little or no grouping by an irrelevant feature when the target was defined by a unique salient feature.
Conjunction search revisited.
  • A. Treisman, S. Sato
  • Psychology
    Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
  • 1990
TLDR
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.
Conjunction search revisited
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,…
Perceptual selectivity for color and form
TLDR
Three visual-search experiments tested whether the preattentive parallel stage can-selectively guide the attentive stage to a particular known-to-be-relevant target feature and revealed that selectivity depends on the relative discriminability of the stimulus dimensions.
Visual Search of Good and Poor Readers: Effects with Targets Having Single and Combined Features
TLDR
Results suggest that, rather than a problem in searching complex stimuli, poor searchers have difficulty within stimuli like letters and geometrical shapes which require integration of features within a module of the visual system.
Response selection in visual search: the influence of response compatibility of nontargets.
TLDR
The results showed that flat search slopes obtained in visual search experiments provide no benchmark for preattentive processing and 2-stage models of visual search predict no effect of the identity of those distractors.
Target and nontarget grouping in visual search
  • J. Duncan
  • Psychology
    Perception & psychophysics
  • 1995
TLDR
Results recently reported by Driver, McLeod, and Dienes (1992) are used to contrast three accounts of visual search—in particular, their mechanism for easy conjunction search and an approach based on perceptual grouping.
Influence of inter-item symmetry in visual search.
TLDR
Results showed that target-distractor symmetry strongly influenced search whereas distractor-distraction symmetry influenced search more weakly, which indicates that static shapes are evaluated for similarity to one another prior to their explicit identification as 'target' or 'distractor'.
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References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 135 REFERENCES
Boundary Conditions on Parallel Processing in Human Vision
TLDR
A new theory of visual search is tested experimentally with simple colour patches, showing that efficiency increases continuously with decreasing similarity between targets and nontargets, and increasing similarity between one nontarget and another.
Perceptual grouping and attention in visual search for features and for objects.
  • A. Treisman
  • Psychology
    Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
  • 1982
TLDR
The effects of perceptual grouping on search for targets defined by separate features or by conjunction of features is explored, suggesting that preattentive grouping creates separate feature maps within each separable dimension rather than one global configuration.
Serial and Parallel Search in Pattern Vision?
TLDR
A reinter-pretation of studies that use the Treisman visual search paradigm, in terms of perceptual segregation of the visual field by disparity, motion, color, and pattern features such as colinearity, orientation, lateral separation, or size, is suggested.
Serial and parallel processing of visual feature conjunctions
TLDR
It seems that the visual system is incapable of conducting a parallel search over two stimulus dimensions simultaneously, but this conclusion is extended for the conjunction of motion and colour, showing that it requires a serial search.
Detection versus Discrimination of Visual Orientation
TLDR
The role of focused attention in vision is examined and experiments show that the mixture of a few horizontal and vertical line segments embedded in an aggregate of diagonal line segments can be rapidly counted by a parallel (preattentive) process, while the discrimination between horizontal and Vertical orientation requires serial search by shifting focal attention to each line segment.
A feature-integration theory of attention
Visual search for a conjunction of movement and form is parallel
TLDR
Attention can be restricted to a spatially dispersed perceptual group, defined by common movement, which contradicts previous conclusions from visual search experiments that attention can only be assigned to contiguous regions of visual space.
Feature analysis in early vision: evidence from search asymmetries.
TLDR
The results of a series of search experiments are interpreted as evidence that focused attention to single items or to groups is required to reduce background activity when the Weber fraction distinguishing the pooled feature activity with displayscontaining a target and with displays containing only distractors is too small to allow reliable discrimination.
Visual search for targets defined by combinations of color, shape, and size: An examination of the task constraints on feature and conjunction searches
TLDR
Evidence for attentional involvement was found when subjects searched for two simultaneously present features, going against the claim that differences between the two types of search occur because feature searches can be carried out preattentively, while only conjunction searches involve the serial application of focused attention.
Guided search: an alternative to the feature integration model for visual search.
TLDR
Searches for triple conjunctions (Color X Size X Form) are easier than searches for standard conjunctions and can be independent of set size, and three parallel processes can guide attention more effectively than two.
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