Does Visual Search Require Memory When Target And Search Array Coexist And Its Search Model

Working memory plays an important role in visual search.On the one hand,people can maintain the detected positions and items in working memory to avoid revisiting them,improving their search efficiency when they conduct visual search tasks.On the other hand,attention templates maintained in working memory can control perceptual attention during visual search,thus directing attention to similar objects.It is important to note that most visual search experiments that support these results are fixed targets,and the target is told before the search task begins.The latest research found that observers seemed to jump right into the search,depending on reidentification of the target rather than on first establishing a representation of the search target in working memory when target identity is revealed simultaneously with the search array and remains available for inspection.This finding seems to contradict previous attention theories.Therefore,this study explores the following two issues:(1)When the target identity is revealed simultaneously with the search array,does the target item require memory to participate in the visual search process?(2)What are the search models under the condition that the target and the search array coexist?This study regards the target and the search array coexist as a new visual search paradigm.Based on previous studies and related theories,this paper proposes three possible search models when the target and the search array coexist: the guided search model,the similarity theory and the reidentification hypothesis.Among them,the guided search model believes that there is a memory effect on the target items in the visual search process,and the similarity theory and the reidentification hypothesis think there is no memory effect.In the first study,we changed the distance between the target and the search array to verify which models are more consistent with the visual search model when the target and the search array coexist? In the second study,we used an eye movement experiment to explore which search model participants were more likely to use when the target and the search array coexisted? Study 3 tries to explain the result of study 1 by exploring whether the recognition of central letters is affected by the size of the search array.The results are as follows:(1)The results of Study 1 show that the interaction of condition and distance is not significant,indicating that participants’ search model is more likely to conform to the similarity theory or the guided search model.(2)In Study 2,whether the distance between the target and the search array is large or small,the eye movement index of the area where the center letter is located is significantly greater than or more than that of the target appears before the search array condition;There was no significant difference in eye movement index of the annular area between target and search array under the two conditions;Under the condition of coexistence of target and search array,the eye movement index of the area where the letters are located in the search array is significantly greater than or more than that of the target appears before the search array condition.These results support the guided search model.(3)There is a significant linear relationship between the size of the search array and the response time of the recognition task,and the response time of the recognition task increases with the size of the search array.This result can reasonably explain why the search efficiency of the two conditions in Study 1 is quite different.This study concludes the following conclusions: when the target and the search array coexist,there is a memory effect on the target item in the process of visual search,and the search model supports the guided search model,the participants still preferred to store the targets in the form of attention templates in their working memory,and completed the visual search by comparing with the items in the search array.