Finding relevant items: Attentional guidance improves visual selection processes

Abstract

In daily life and at work people are confronted with complex information. Especially elderly or disabled users might be overburdened by the amount of information and distracted by irrelevant items. Due to this, they possibly fail to find and select relevant items in visual search. This could be demotivating for the use of media like the internet or could result in an inability to achieve certain job requirements. A method for supporting performance in visual search tasks is the guidance of attention. The present study compares different methods for attentional guidance. Results show a benefit for peripheral exogenous cues realized as luminance changes in comparison to endogenous central cues. Possible applications for the proposed attentional guidance method are discussed. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009.