Visual search and selective attention

Abstract

Abstract Visual search is a key paradigm in attention research that has proved to be a test bed for competing theories of selective attention. The starting point for most current theories of visual search has been Treisman's "feature integration theory" of visual attention (e.g., Treisman & Gelade, Citation1980). A number of key issues that have been raised in attempts to test this theory are still pertinent questions of research today: (1) The role and (mode of) function of bottom-up and top-down mechanisms in controlling or "guiding" visual search; (2) in particular, the role and function of implicit and explicit memory mechanisms; (3) the implementation of these mechanisms in the brain; and (4) the simulation of visual search processes in computational or, respectively, neurocomputational (network) models. This paper provides a review of the experimental work and the—often conflicting—theoretical positions on these thematic issues, and goes on to introduce a set of papers by distinguished experts in fields designed to provide solutions to these issues. Notes 1Supported by the DFG (German National Research Council) and the US Office of Naval Research.