Does linear separability really matter? Complex visual search is explained by simple search

Vighneshvel, TN and Arun, SP (2013) Does linear separability really matter? Complex visual search is explained by simple search. In: JOURNAL OF VISION, 13 (11).

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Abstract

Visual search in real life involves complex displays with a target among multiple types of distracters, but in the laboratory, it is often tested using simple displays with identical distracters. Can complex search be understood in terms of simple searches? This link may not be straightforward if complex search has emergent properties. One such property is linear separability, whereby search is hard when a target cannot be separated from its distracters using a single linear boundary. However, evidence in favor of linear separability is based on testing stimulus configurations in an external parametric space that need not be related to their true perceptual representation. We therefore set out to assess whether linear separability influences complex search at all. Our null hypothesis was that complex search performance depends only on classical factors such as target-distracter similarity and distracter homogeneity, which we measured using simple searches. Across three experiments involving a variety of artificial and natural objects, differences between linearly separable and nonseparable searches were explained using target-distracter similarity and distracter heterogeneity. Further, simple searches accurately predicted complex search regardless of linear separability (r = 0.91). Our results show that complex search is explained by simple search, refuting the widely held belief that linear separability influences visual search.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	JOURNAL OF VISION
Publisher:	ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC
Additional Information:	copyright for this article belongs to ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC,USA
Keywords:	similarity; shape; perception
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Neuroscience
Date Deposited:	02 Jan 2014 06:37
Last Modified:	02 Jan 2014 06:37
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/48007

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