Professions such as radiology and aviation security screening that rely on visual search--the act of looking for targets among distractors--often cannot provide operators immediate feedback, which can create situations where performance may be largely driven by the searchers' own expectations. For example, if searchers do not expect relatively…

How does past experience influence visual search strategy (i.e., attentional set)? Recent reports have shown that, when given the option to use 1 of 2 attentional sets, observers persist with the set previously required in a training phase. Here, 2 related questions are addressed. First, does the training effect result only from perseveration with…