From the moment you open your eyes, your visual system begins to efficiently analyze and interpret the barrage of input both simultaneously and sequentially. You are almost immediately aware of salient objects in your view, usually because such objects are visually distinct from other objects and the background. Recognition of visual objects, however, must engage many sequential stages of analysis, including segementation of the visual array into groups and objects, deployment of attention to relevant attributes, identification of input by comparison to memory and finally decision processes that match input to goals for the selection of response. Visual search has traditionally been used to study early perceptual properties of the visual system and the factors of attentional deployment. Here, we propose to use a new visual search paradigm to investigate these other stages of analysis. This research will demonstrate three properties of recognition in visual search: 1) how grouping principles are used in segmenting targets, 2) the role of identification in target detection and 3) the extent to which decision processes determine search speed.
