Investigating the contribution of parallel processing to visual search performance according to the Target Contrast Signal Theory

Madison, Anna M

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/108333 Copy

Description

Title

Investigating the contribution of parallel processing to visual search performance according to the Target Contrast Signal Theory

Author(s)

Madison, Anna M

Issue Date

2020-05-07

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

• Lleras, Alejandro
• Buetti, Simona

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

• Lleras, Alejandro
• Buetti, Simona

Committee Member(s)

• Beck, Diane
• Wang, Ranxiao (Fances)
• Morrow, Dan

Department of Study

Psychology

Discipline

Psychology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Visual search
• Parallel processing

Abstract

Visually searching around our environment is a common behavior that underlies many tasks we do each day, such as searching the roadway while driving. But the attention demands of such a task can vary depending on the roadway condition: it can be very easy on rural roads, when there are fewer objects and cars, or it can be very difficult when driving in a city where there are many other vehicles. This ubiquitous search behavior is studied in the lab through the visual search paradigm. Contrary to the traditional notion of a pre-attentive stage that is based on saliency or target activation maps, Target Contrast Signal Theory (TCST) proposes that parallel processing in early vision involves evidence accumulation about how likely a given location is to contain the target in effort to reject items from further processing. The experiments presented and proposed in this thesis further our knowledge and understanding about this early parallel processing in visual search and allows us to extend previous findings of parallel processing to new tasks and applications. Chapter 1 serves as a general introduction into visual search and provides a discussion of TCST. Chapter 2 investigates the role of color affordance in visual search by equating stimuli color and luminance. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between this visual search efficiency and working memory, using TCST as the theoretical model to separate parallel processing from serial processing. Chapter 4 investigates the flexibility of early parallel processing, comparing a target discrimination task and a detection task, highlighting the variability between the two tasks, and interrogating how search is terminated with parallel processing.

Graduation Semester

2020-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108333

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2020 Anna Madison

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