The effect of informative and uninformative cueing of attention on featureintegration

In the present study, the authors observed the effect of informative and un informative attentional cueing on visual search for targets that were defin ed by a simple feature or by conjunctions of features. Three different type s of attentional cueing were tested in three experiments: peripheral inform ative cueing, peripheral uninformative cueing, and central informative cuei ng. Participants showed a greater effect of cueing in detecting a conjuncti on of features than in detecting unique features only when attention was or iented by either peripheral or central informative cueing. This differentia l cueing effect was not observed when attention was oriented by peripheral uninformative cueing. The results suggest that voluntarily oriented attenti on plays a more important role in feature integration than automatically or iented attention does. The results also pose limits on the generalizability of K. A. Briand's (1998) proposal regarding the role of automatically orie nted attention in feature integration.