New reflections on visual search: Interitem symmetry matters!

A 90 degrees rotation of a display can turn a relatively easy visual search into a more difficult one. A series of experiments examined the possible causes of this effect, including differences in overall item shape and response mapping (Experiment 1), the interpretation of scene lighting (Experiment 2), the axis of internal symmetry of the search items (Experiment 3), and the axes of interitem symmetry between target and distractor items (Experiment 4). Only the elimination of differences in interitem mirror symmetry resulted in equal search efficiency in the upright and rotated displays. This finding is strong support for the view that visual search is guided by an analysis that considers interitem relations.