SEARCH FOR A CONJUNCTIVELY DEFINED TARGET CAN BE SELECTIVELY LIMITED TO A COLOR-DEFINED SUBSET OF ELEMENTS

In conjunction search, response latencies usually increase with the nu mber of displayed elements, suggesting serial, self-terminating search through all elements. In line with the results of H. Egeth, R. Virzi, and H. Garbart (1984), the present study shows that subjects do not n ecessarily search all display elements, but can Limit their search to a color-defined subset of elements. The results make clear that select ive search for a color-defined subset does not depend on saliency of t he subset (Experiment 1), that selective search can be purely color-ba sed and does not depend on luminance (Experiment 2), and that subjects can flexibly change which subset they are searching (Experiment 3). E xperiment 4 showed that subset-selective search also occurs without fa st absent responses as found in Experiments 1-3 and that for selective search no explicit instruction is required. Subset-selective search i s a likely strategy in conjunction search.