The roles of symbolic and numerical representations in asymmetric visual search

This study aims to explore the impact of symbolic and numerical representations in asymmetric visual search. Heterogeneous and homogeneous mathematical units, letters, symbols and numbers were used in the first and second experiments, respectively. Target was searched among 6 or 12 stimuli. Analysis showed that the search efficiency was greatest in LaS (large among small), but the performance decreased significantly in SaS (small among small). Moreover, LaS was faster than SaL (small among large). However, SaL was faster than LaL (large among large) and LaL was faster than SaS. The findings of this study showed that the search efficiency was indirectly proportional to the number of stimuli. This implies that processing of visual stimuli of different sizes and appearance was asymmetric, all requiring varied attention. In summary, these findings strengthen the integration theory, similarity theory and guided search model.