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Out with the old: Inhibition of old items in a preview search is limited

Perception & Psychophysics volume 70, pages 1552–1557 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

If some of the distractors in a visual search task are previewed prior to the presentation of the remaining distractors and the target, search time is reduced relative to when all of the items are displayed simultaneously. Here, we tested whether the ability to preferentially search new items during such a preview search is limited. We confirmed previous studies: The proportion of fixations on old items was significantly less than chance. However, the probability of fixating old locations was negatively affected by increasing the number of previewed distractors, suggesting that inhibition is limited to a small number of old items. Furthermore, the ability to inhibit old locations was limited to the first four fixations, indicating that by the fifth fixation, the resources required to sustain inhibition had been depleted. Together, these findings suggest that inhibition of old items in a preview search is a top-down mediated process dependent on capacity-limited cognitive resources.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, M5S 3G3, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Stephen M. Emrich, Justin D. N. Ruppel, Naseem Al-Aidroos, Jay Pratt & Susanne Ferber

  2. Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Susanne Ferber

Authors
  1. Stephen M. Emrich
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  2. Justin D. N. Ruppel
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  3. Naseem Al-Aidroos
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  4. Jay Pratt
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  5. Susanne Ferber
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephen M. Emrich.

Additional information

This research was supported by NSERC grants to S.F. and J.P., NSERC scholarships to N.A. and S.M.E., and a CIHR grant awarded to S.F.

Note—Accepted by the editorial board of Editor-Elect Jeremy M. Wolfe.

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Emrich, S.M., Ruppel, J.D.N., Al-Aidroos, N. et al. Out with the old: Inhibition of old items in a preview search is limited. Perception & Psychophysics 70, 1552–1557 (2008). https://doi.org/10.3758/PP.70.8.1552

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/PP.70.8.1552

Keywords

  • Visual Search Task
  • Search Display
  • Search Slope
  • Preview Benefit
  • Preview Condition