Publication: Visual Search for Arbitrary Objects in Real Scenes
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Date
2011-06-14
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Springer Science and Business Media LLC
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Citation
Wolfe, Jeremy, M. Alvarez, George Rosenholtz, A. Kuzmova, and Ruth Sherman. "Visual Search for Arbitrary Objects in Real Scenes." Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics 73, no. 6 (2011): 1650-671.
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Abstract
How efficient is visual search in real scenes? In searches for targets among arrays of randomly
placed distractors, efficiency is often indexed by the slope of the reaction time (RT) × Set Size
function. However, it may be impossible to define set size for real scenes. As an approximation,
we hand-labeled 100 indoor scenes and used the number of labeled regions as a surrogate for set
size. In Experiment 1, observers searched for named objects (a chair, bowl, etc.). With set size
defined as the number of labeled regions, search was very efficient (~5 ms/item). When we
controlled for a possible guessing strategy in Experiment 2, slopes increased somewhat (~15 ms/
item), but they were much shallower than search for a random object among other distinctive
objects outside of a scene setting (Exp. 3: ~40 ms/item). In Experiments 4–6, observers searched
repeatedly through the same scene for different objects. Increased familiarity with scenes had
modest effects on RTs, while repetition of target items had large effects (>500 ms). We propose
that visual search in scenes is efficient because scene-specific forms of attentional guidance can
eliminate most regions from the “functional set size” of items that could possibly be the target.
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Keywords
Linguistics and Language, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sensory Systems, Language and Linguistics
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