Mechanisms of Representation Construction in Categorical Search: the Role of Attention and Working Memory

Abstract

Introduction. The task of visual search involves locating target stimuli among distractors. This task is one of the most popular in attention research. Both the methodology and theoretical understanding of attention mechanisms in this task have undergone significant changes with the development of cognitive psychology. Modern studies focus more on the ecological validity of the stimulus material used and the participant's response methods, while contemporary theoretical models attempt to consider different variations of target stimulus presentation. Theoretical Justification. We examine categorical search, a type of visual search in which target stimuli are specified by category name. We propose a theoretical model for constructing a representation of the target stimulus in categorical search. This type of search is viewed as a two-stage process: the first stage involves selecting a set of objects in the visual field through attentional guidance, and the second stage involves checking these objects for compliance with the attentional template. The verification process entails verbally naming stimuli based on motor program activation. Within this representation of categorical search mechanisms, we also consider empirical data obtained from various task modifications. Special attention is given to the methodology of hybrid search, where participants need to locate several pre-memorized target stimuli. Discussion. It is suggested that hybrid search is guided by one of the representations (likely the first memorized one), followed by sequential comparison of objects to the attentional template representation of the target stimulus. Each of the non-matching objects is sequentially compared with the other representations.

Keywords

• categorization
• visual attention
• visual search
• categorical search
• hybrid search
• representation
• working memory