Authors
Eduard Ort, Christian NL Olivers
Publication date
2020/9/13
Source
Visual Cognition
Volume
28
Issue
5-8
Pages
330-355
Publisher
Routledge
Description
Can individuals look for multiple objects at the same time? A simple question, but answering it has proven difficult. In this review, we describe possible cognitive architectures and their predictions about the capacity of visual search. We broadly distinguish three stages at which limitations may occur: (1) preparation (establishing and maintaining a mental representation of a search target), (2) selection (using this mental representation to extract candidate targets from the visual input), and (3) post-selection processing (verifying that the selected information actually is a target). We then review the empirical evidence from various paradigms, together with their strengths and pitfalls. The emerging picture is that multiple target search comes with costs, but the magnitude of this cost differs depending on the processing stage. Selection appears strongly limited, while preparation of multiple search target representations in …
Total citations
2020202120222023202421212165
Scholar articles