Pop-out vs. Glue: A Study on the pre-attentive and focused attention stages in Visual Search tasks

Success in these tasks depends on factors like awareness, cognitive abilities, and the nature of the search itself. Some studies have explored the complexities of visual search, focusing on asymmetry, where locating target A among distractors B is easier than finding B among A. Our research specifically examines the asymmetry between finding an oblique line among straight lines versus a straight line among oblique lines. Anne Treisman's study (Treisman & Gelade, 1980) [3] found that certain features, like colour, are more easily detected than others, such as orientation. Further, Treisman & Gormican (1988) [4] showed that identifying a vertical target among oblique distractors took longer than identifying an oblique target among vertical distractors, this supports the idea that a basic feature enhances detection. We aim to replicate these findings with the following research question: Does searching for an oblique target among vertical distractors result in search asymmetry, and vice versa? We anticipate a'pop-out' effect when participants search for an oblique target among vertical distractors, suggesting a parallel search. As opposed to a serial search pattern in the reverse condition. Consistent with Treisman & Gormican's findings [4], we predict faster identification of oblique targets, aligning with the'pop-out' effect, while vertical targets will require focused attention ('glue' phase), particularly as distractor numbers increase.