Visual search of good and poor readers: effects with targets having single and combined features

This study examined differences between normal and poor readers in the visual-search strategy used to detect a target shape in a background of similar shapes. No differences between the two groups occur in search for simple features (Exps. 1 and 3) and conjunction of features (Exp. 2). However, the performance of the two groups differ on search tasks with multifeatured shapes, in which targets and nontargets differ in both the identity of features and their spatial relationship or in the spatial relationship of features alone. Results suggest that, rather than a problem in searching complex stimuli, poor searchers have difficulty within stimuli like letters and geometrical shapes which require integration of features within a module of the visual system.