In this line of research, the researchers are examining the influence of relevance of a salient item on task performance, depending on overall task set.

When finding a target item during visual search (looking for a pencil), a salient item can capture attention (your phone flashing from a message). Typical attention studies only examine salient items when shown as distractor during search, to ensure any attention to the items are driven by salience alone. However, the impact of salience may interact with the relevance of the item for the search task (e.g. how likely the salient item is to be the target). Here, the researchers investigate these interactions in a basic science study when participants perform an easy task or a difficult search task.

Inclusion Criteria:

• normal or corrected to normal visual acuity, normal color vision

Exclusion Criteria:

-

The researchers plan to share anonymized subject data on Open Science Framework.

Upon publication.

Open Science Framework, Internet access.