The Effect of Scene Context on Visual Search in Real‐World Scenes

Abstract

The present study examined the effect of scene context on guidance of attention during visual search in real‐world scenes. Prior research has demonstrated that when searching for an object, attention is usually guided to the region of a scene that most likely contains that target object. This study examined two possible mechanisms of attention that underlie efficient search: enhancement of attention (facilitation) and a deficiency of attention (inhibition). In this study, participants (N=20) were shown an object name and then required to search through scenes for the target while their eye movements were tracked. Scenes were divided into target‐relevant contextual regions (upper, middle, lower) and participants searched repeatedly in the same scene for different targets either in the same region or in different regions. Comparing repeated searches within the same scene across different regions, we expect to find that visual search is faster and more efficient (facilitation of attention) in regions of a scene where attention was previously deployed. At the same time, when searching across different regions, we expect searches to be slower and less efficient (inhibition of attention) because those regions were previously ignored. Results from this study help to better understand how mechanisms of visual attention operate within scene contexts during visual search.