Selective influence and sequential operations: A research strategy for visual search

ABSTRACT

We discuss the problem of elucidating mechanisms of visual search. We begin by considering the history, logic, and methods of relating behavioural or cognitive processes with neural processes. We then survey briefly the cognitive neurophysiology of visual search and essential aspects of the neural circuitry supporting this capacity. We introduce conceptually and empirically a powerful but underutilized experimental approach to dissect the cognitive processes supporting performance of a visual search task with factorial manipulations of singleton-distractor identifiability and stimulus-response cue discriminability. We show that systems factorial technology can distinguish processing architectures from the performance of macaque monkeys. This demonstration offers new opportunities to distinguish neural mechanisms through selective manipulation of visual encoding, search selection, rule encoding, and stimulus-response mapping.

KEYWORDS:

• Additivity
• decision-making
• response time
• selective influence
• stages of processing
• systems factorial technology

View correction statement:

Correction

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Greg Cox, Joe Lappin, Heinrich René Liesefeld, Gordon Logan, Thomas Palmeri, and James Townsend for helpful comments and suggestions. Requests for materials should be addressed to J. D. S. (e-mail: [email protected]).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Eye Institute [grant numbers RO1-EY08890, T32-EY007135, F32-EY028846, P30-EY008126]; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [grant number U54-HD083211], and by Robin and Richard Patton through the E. Bronson Ingram Chair in Neuroscience.