Cognitive residues of similarity

TL;DR

This study investigates how making similarity judgments affects subsequent visual search performance, revealing that high similarity ratings can inhibit search speed and that different comparison tasks produce distinct after-effects.

Contribution

The paper introduces evidence that similarity judgments leave cognitive residues influencing visual search, with effects varying by the type of comparison task performed.

Findings

High similarity ratings slow down visual search

Different comparison tasks produce distinct after-effects

Visual search is influenced by prior similarity judgments

Abstract

What are the cognitive after-effects of making a similarity judgement? What, cognitively, is left behind and what effect might these residues have on subsequent processing? In this paper, we probe for such after-effects using a visual search task, performed after a task in which pictures of real-world objects were compared. So, target objects were first presented in a comparison task (e.g., rate the similarity of this object to another) thus, presumably, modifying some of their features before asking people to visually search for the same object in complex scenes (with distractors and camouflaged backgrounds). As visual search is known to be influenced by the features of target objects, then any after-effects of the comparison task should be revealed in subsequent visual searches. Results showed that when people previously rated an object as being high on a scale (e.g., colour similarity or general similarity) then visual search is inhibited (slower RTs and more saccades in eye-tracking) relative to an object being rated as low in the same scale. There was also some evidence that different comparison tasks (e.g., compare on colour or compare on general similarity) have differential effects on visual search.