No exploitation of temporal sequence context during visual search.

Floortje G Bouwkamp,Eelke Spaak,Floris P De Lange

doi:10.1098/rsos.201565

Abstract

The human visual system can rapidly extract regularities from our visual environment, generating predictive context. It has been shown that spatial predictive context can be used during visual search. We set out to see whether observers can additionally exploit temporal predictive context based on sequence order, using an extended version of a contextual cueing paradigm. Though we replicated the contextual cueing effect, repeating search scenes in a structured order versus a random order yielded no additional behavioural benefit. This was also true when we looked specifically at participants who revealed a sensitivity to spatial predictive context. We argue that spatial predictive context during visual search is more readily learned and subsequently exploited than temporal predictive context, potentially rendering the latter redundant. In conclusion, unlike spatial context, temporal context is not automatically extracted and used during visual search.

Highlights

From the moment we wake up, we are continuously confronted with visual input
These results demonstrate that people did not make use of temporal predictive context in addition to spatial predictive context during our visual search task
The aim of this study was to investigate the potential benefit of temporal predictive context over and above spatial predictive context during visual search

Summary

Introduction

Selective attention helps us to navigate this rich visual environment, by enabling us to process what is important for the task at hand, and to ignore the rest. A bike ride to work requires us to attend to the road, the signs and traffic, without letting our eyes wander to the bright blue sky. Humans are incredibly good at focusing attention to select objects from cluttered scenes. Our world might be very complex, but it is very stable: the road is always beneath us and signs are usually found at the roadside. Covariation between objects and their environments creates a predictive context that can be exploited by the visual system to guide selective attention more royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsos R.

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