Task-dependent sensitisation of perceptual and semantic processing during visual search for words

Abstract

Two experiments examined the impact of task-set on people's use of the visual and semantic features of words during visual search. Participants' eye movements were recorded while the distractor words were manipulated. In both experiments, the target word was either given literally (literal task) or defined by a semantic clue (categorical task). According to Kiefer and Martens, participants should preferentially use either the visual or semantic features of words depending on their relevance for the task. This assumption was partially supported. As expected, orthographic neighbours of the target word attracted participants' attention more and took longer to reject, once fixated, during the literal task. Conversely, semantic associates of the target word took longer to reject during the categorical task. However, they did not attract participants' attention more than in the literal task. This unexpected finding is discussed in relation to the processing of words in the peripheral visual field.

Keywords:

• Attention guidance
• Cognitive task-set
• Eye tracking
• Visual search
• Word processing

The authors thank Jean Pylouster for his excellent technical assistance in the analysis of the eye movement data and all the participants for their time and cooperation.

The authors thank Jean Pylouster for his excellent technical assistance in the analysis of the eye movement data and all the participants for their time and cooperation.