Salience matters: Distractors may, or may not, speed target-absent searches

Abstract

Attention is often captured by irrelevant but salient changes in the environment, and usually results in slowed search speeds and increased errors during a typical visual search task. Nonetheless, a recent study conducted by Moher (2020, Psychological Science, 31[1], 31–42) found that the effect of a highly salient distractor on visual search depended on whether or not a target was also present in the display. While the distractor slowed search and increased errors for target-present trials, it speeded search for target-absent trials. Here, we aimed to replicate this finding and explore a potential boundary condition to the effect by manipulating the overall salience of the distractor. We did this by changing the size of the distractor to make it more or less salient. In Experiment, participants conducted a target-present and target-absent visual search task in the presence of a large, delayed-onset color distractor similar to that used in Moher’s Study. In Experiment 2, a distractor that was much smaller than that used in the original Moher study was utilized. Critically, when a large distractor was used, the original findings of Moher were largely replicated; large salient distractors speeded target-absent visual search and increased errors for target-present visual search. However, when a smaller distractor was used, the results differed. For target-absent trials, search speeds were slower when the distractor was present compared with when it was absent. Thus, it appears that a highly salient distractor might be needed to trigger a shift in visual search strategy, and subsequently, lower quitting thresholds.