The art of thinking · 2 · Perception and attention
Visual search
Also known as: Feature search, Conjunction search, Feature integration theory
German: visuelle Suche
In cognitive psychology, visual search is the task and process of finding a target among distractors in a visual display; research distinguishes targets defined by a single unique feature, which tend to “pop out”, from targets defined by a combination of features, whose search time grows with the number of items.
- Cognitive psychology
- Attention
- Perception
In one sentence
Visual search is finding a target among distractors; single-feature targets pop out, feature combinations take longer (Treisman and Gelade, 1980).
Example
On a panel with forty gray buttons, the one red button is found at once; finding the one round gray button among square gray and round blue buttons takes longer, the more buttons there are.
What the research shows
Anne M. Treisman and Garry Gelade (1980) found that a target differing from all distractors in one feature (a red item among green ones) was found about as fast with many distractors as with few, while a target defined by a conjunction of features (a red X among red Os and green Xs) took longer with every added item. Their feature integration theory explained this with parallel registration of features and serial, attention-based binding of features into objects. Jeremy M. Wolfe's Guided Search model (1994) proposed instead that preattentive feature information guides attention toward likely targets, so that conjunction search can also be efficient. Wolfe and Todd S. Horowitz (2017) name five factors that guide search: bottom-up salience, top-down feature guidance, scene structure and meaning, the history of earlier searches and the value of targets.
Evidence status
The basic findings — efficient search for unique features, less efficient search for conjunctions and for targets similar to the distractors — are robust. The strict split into “parallel” and “serial” search is no longer held: search efficiency forms a continuum. Rare targets are missed more often than frequent ones (the prevalence effect), and experts also miss unexpected targets outside their search template (see inattentional blindness). Laboratory displays are simpler than real pages and panels, so findings transfer as tendencies.
How it applies
Readers search pages, tables and panels for a step, a value or a symbol. What distinguishes the target from its surroundings decides how fast and how reliably it is found. The glossary “Applied cognitive psychology for information use” covers the design side, for example scanning and information scent; on machines, findability of controls and indicators is also a matter of the human-machine interface (HMI) design.
External references
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