Uncertainty, attentional capacity and chromatic mechanisms in visual search

Two general questions were investigated using a visual search task. First, we asked whether effects of target uncertainty on reaction time varied with the discriminability of the target and distractors. Second, a higher order chromatic mechanism model was tested against a flexible model in which the signals in cardinal color-opponent mechanisms are combined through an attentional process. The models were tested by measuring the effects of target uncertainty on search time. A regression analysis indicated that the magnitude of the uncertainty effect was approximately constant in logarithmic units as a function of the chromatic difference between the target and distractors. The constant magnitude of the uncertainty effect suggested that an attentional capacity limit was exceeded when observers were required to monitor several chromatic mechanisms at several locations. The results of experiments 3 and 4 suggested that search for chromatic targets among distractors was mediated by diagonally tuned higher order chromatic mechanisms, rather than by signals in cardinal color-opponent mechanisms that were combined through an attentional mechanism.