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Eye-tracking Investigation of Visual Search Strategies When Mediated by Language

Eye-tracking Investigation of Visual Search Strategies When Mediated by Language Eric M. Chiu (echiu@ucmerced.edu) Lillian M. Rigoli (lrigoli@ucmerced.edu) Michael J. Spivey (spivey@ucmerced.edu) Cognitive and Information Sciences, 5200 North Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343 USA Abstract A conjunction search uses multiple features, thus multiple maps are needed to identify the presence and subsequently map the location of each feature in a visual field. According to Feature Integration Theory, the mechanism used on conjunction-search arrays is referred to as a serial search process, which claims that observers allocate complete attentional resources discretely and wholly to individual objects one at a time (Treisman & Gelade, 1980; Treisman & Gormican, 1988). Recent findings have demonstrated that instead of two apparently dichotomous perspectives, parallel and serial, attention in visual search may be better described as a single process of graded enhancement of feature salience. This is supported by observed gradual improvements of efficiency in visual search tasks (Olds, Cowan, & Jolicoeur, 2000a; 2000b; 2000c). In a series of experiments, Olds et al. observed facilitatory effects as a result of very brief presentations (less than 100 ms in some conditions) of displays with only single-feature distractors before transitioning to conjunction displays. Although observers’ responses were not as fast as with pure pop-out displays, the data produced a graded improvement of efficiency. To account for findings like those Maioli, Benaglio, Siri, Sosta, and Cappa (2001) argue for a time-limited competitive model of attention in visual search, in which both parallel and serial processing mechanisms are integrated. This perspective is supported in part by neural mechanisms in extrastriate visual cortex that exhibit a form of “biased competition” between multiple object representations that are partially active in parallel (Desimone & Duncan, 1995; Desimone, 1998; Reynolds & Desimone, 2001). Findings like Olds et al.’s (2000a, b, c) “search assistance,” along with various other studies (Eckstein, 1998; Wolfe, 1998; Maioli et al., 2001; Watson, Brennan, Kingstone, & Enns, 2010) have largely shifted the description of visual search phenomena from a serial- parallel dichotomy to a graded and continuous account of visual search efficiency (Nakayama & Joseph, 1998). Further support for this trend comes from work by Spivey, Tyler, Eberhard, and Tanenhaus (2001) that discovered another type of “search assistance” phenomenon. Observers in an Audio/Visual-Concurrent (A/V-concurrent) condition, where the conjunction-search display is presented concurrently with target identity delivery via auditory linguistic queries (e.g. “Is there a red vertical?”), exhibited Traditional parallel and serial descriptions of the visual search process are often inadequate when describing recent findings. Accordingly, literature and computational models have evolved from a dichotomous parallel and serial explanation to an account of search efficiency that is graded and continuous. In our current experiment, we replicate findings showing concurrent incremental information processing, via auditory spoken language, mediates visual search and improves search efficiency (Spivey et al., 2001; Reali et al., 2006; Chiu & Spivey, 2012). Novel to this study is the use of eye-tracking to investigate the role of language in mediating and improving strategies for visual search. We find evidence that search is best described as a purely parallel mechanism that immediately and rapidly integrates linguistic and visual information. This finding supports an interactive account of visual attention and spoken language. Keywords: visual search, language, eye-tracking, dense- sampling, conjunction Introduction Humans are inherently limited capacity creatures and as a result crossmodal interactions bestow considerable behavioral advantages. At any given time, only a small amount of the existing information on the retina can be processed and mapped onto motor output. Giving attention to any one stimulus leaves less processing for any others because of the selectivity of attention. The ability to filter out unwanted information allows for awareness of attended stimuli but generally results in unawareness of unattended ones. Treisman and Gelade’s (1980) Feature Integration Theory distinguishes between two perspectives for processing visual search arrays. First is the initial parallel processing perspective, which institutes a single feature array and accounts for the majority of parallel processing observations. Parallel processing responses are based on a single map of partially active representations of objects simultaneously contending for probabilistic mapping onto motor output. These single feature arrays often induce what is called a perceptual “pop-out” effect, where the unique target object that differs from distractor objects by the only feature (e.g., color, orientation, etc.) in the array appears to pop-out (Treisman & Gelade, 1980; Treisman & Gormican,