Decomposing visual search: Evidence of multiple item-specific skills.

Hillstrom, Anne P.; Logan, Gordon D. · 1998 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1037//0096-1523.24.5.1385

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Summary

This study investigates the cognitive architecture of visual search by determining whether it can be decomposed into distinct skill components, specifically those shared with memory search and those unique to visual search. The research is motivated by the observation that visual search performance improves with practice, particularly through reduced sensitivity to display size, which is often attributed to improved prioritization of target elements. The authors sought to isolate this prioritization skill from other shared skills, such as object identification and memory set comparison, to understand how learning transfers between these tasks. To test this, the authors employed a training-transfer paradigm across four experiments, with Experiment 1 detailed in the provided text. Participants were divided into two groups: one trained on visual search (identifying targets in multi-element displays) and the other on memory search (identifying if a single displayed element belonged to a memorized set). Both groups practiced for five days and then transferred to the alternate task for five additional days, using the same target sets. The design allowed the researchers to assess whether practice in one task fully trained the skills required for the other. If visual search skills were merely a superset of memory search skills, training in visual search should completely transfer to memory search, whereas the reverse should be incomplete if visual search requires additional unique skills, such as prioritization. The results demonstrated asymmetric transfer between the tasks. Participants trained on visual search showed complete transfer to memory search; their performance during the memory search transfer phase matched the performance of participants who had trained directly on memory search. This indicated that visual search practice effectively trained all skills involved in memory search, including object identification and memory set comparison. Conversely, participants trained on memory search showed only partial transfer to visual search. Their visual search performance during the transfer phase was significantly slower than that of participants trained directly on visual search. Furthermore, while the shared skills improved, the unique prioritization skills in visual search did not benefit from memory search training, as evidenced by the lack of improvement in display-size slopes for the memory-to-visual group compared to the visual-to-memory group. These findings support the conclusion that visual search can be functionally decomposed into a shared component (skills common to memory search) and a private component (skills specific to visual search, primarily prioritization). The study implies that visual search relies on a prioritization mechanism that is not engaged in single-element memory search tasks. This decomposition clarifies the nature of practice effects in visual search, distinguishing between improvements in general identification/comparison skills and the specific learning of attentional prioritization. The results challenge models that assume visual and memory search rely on identical mechanisms and support theories where visual search involves additional processes for managing multiple items.

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• visual search