The Guidance of Attentional Selectivity in Visual Search Is Always Feature-Based: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence From Feature and Conjunction Search Tasks.

ABSTRACT: It is generally assumed that the guidance of attention in visual search operates in a feature-based fashion, but this conclusion is mainly based on the results of search tasks with feature-defined targets. Here, we investigated whether attentional templates may contain integrated object-based representations in tasks where targets are defined by feature conjunctions. Attentional load was manipulated by instructing participants to search for a single or one of two different possible targets. Search targets were either defined by a particular color or shape (feature search tasks) or by a color/shape combination (conjunction search task), and load effects were compared between these two types of tasks. Load effects on search performance as well as on electrophysiological markers of attentiona

SUBMITTER: Wang Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12541687 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature