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The Nesting of Search Contexts Within Natural Scenes: Evidence From Contextual Cuing
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

The Nesting of Search Contexts Within Natural Scenes: Evidence From Contextual Cuing

Daniel I Brooks, Ian P Rasmussen and Andrew Hollingworth
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, Vol.36(6), pp.1406-1418
12/2010
DOI: 10.1037/a0019257
PMCID: PMC3163502
PMID: 20731525
url
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019257View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

In a contextual cuing paradigm, we examined how memory for the spatial structure of a natural scene guides visual search. Participants searched through arrays of objects that were embedded within depictions of real-world scenes. If a repeated search array was associated with a single scene during study, then array repetition produced significant contextual cuing. However, expression of that learning was dependent on instantiating the original scene in which the learning occurred: Contextual cuing was disrupted when the repeated array was transferred to a different scene. Such scene-specific learning was not absolute, however. Under conditions of high scene variability, repeated search array were learned independently of the scene background. These data suggest that when a consistent environmental structure is available, spatial representations supporting visual search are organized hierarchically, with memory for functional subregions of an environment nested within a representation of the larger scene.
 visual memory visual search scene perception spatial memory contextual cuing

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