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Many important situations require human observers to simultaneously search for more than one object. Despite a long history of research into visual search, the behavioral and neural mechanisms associated with multiple-target search are poorly understood. Here we test the novel theory that the efficiency of looking for multiple targets critically depends on the mode of cognitive control the environment affords to the observer. We used an innovative combination of electroencephalogram (EEG) and eye tracking while participants searched for two targets, within two different contexts: either both targets were present in the search display and observers were free to prioritize either one of them, thus enabling proactive control over selection; or only one of the two targets would be present in each search display, which requires reactive control to reconfigure selection when the wrong target has been prioritized. During …