Previous research using the contextual cuing paradigm has revealed both quantitative and qualitative differences in learning depending on whether repeated contexts are defined by letter arrays or real-world scenes. To clarify the relative contributions of visual features and semantic information likely to account for such differences, the typical…

Eye movements were monitored to examine search efficiency and infer how color is mentally represented to guide search for multiple targets. Observers located a single color target very efficiently by fixating colors similar to the target. However, simultaneous search for 2 colors produced a dual-target cost. In addition, as the similarity between…

In 4 experiments, we intermixed trials in which the stimulus color was relevant with trials where participants had to judge the stimulus shape or parity and found that the logical-recoding rule (Hedge & Marsh, 1975) applied to the relevant dimension in a task can generalize to the irrelevant dimension of the other task. The mapping…

The relationship between object files and visual working memory (VWM) was investigated in a new paradigm combining features of traditional VWM experiments (color change detection) and object-file experiments (memory for the properties of moving objects). Object-file theory was found to account for a key component of object-position binding in VWM:…

In 2 experiments, eye movements were examined during searches in which elements were grouped into four 9-item clusters. The target (a red or blue "T") was known in advance, and each cluster contained different numbers of target-color elements. Rather than color composition of a cluster invariantly guiding the order of search though…

In 3 experiments the authors used a new contextual bias paradigm to explore how quickly information is extracted from a scene to activate gist, whether color contributes to this activation, and how color contributes, if it does. Participants were shown a brief presentation of a scene followed by the name of a target object. The target object could…

The authors report 4 experiments that examined color grouping and negative carryover effects in preview search via a probe detection task (J. J. Braithwaite, G. W. Humphreys, & J. Hodsoll, 2003). In Experiment 1, there was evidence of a negative color carryover from the preview to new items, using both search and probe detection measures. There…

Four experiments are described in which 1 visual object (the target) was selected from another (the distractor) according to its color (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) or its relative location (Experiment 3) and then was classified according to a simple geometric property. Object classification was signaled as fast as possible by a precision or power…