Two experiments used a two-phase visual search task in which participants i
dentified the presence of a unique shape against a background of homogeneou
s distractors. Latent inhibitionlike (LI) effects (poorer performance when
the target had previously been a distractor and the distracter had been a t
arget as compared to a novel target with distracters that had been a target
) and novel pop-out (NPO) effects were examined. In both experiments, and a
s in previous studies, robust LI was obtained, but unlike those studies, th
ere was no NPO. The LI-like effect was strengthened by the presence of remi
nder trials (Experiment I) and weakened by a change of context from the pre
exposure to the test phase (Experiment 2). The results support the position
that the visual search paradigm taps the same processes as those in tradit
ional LI experiments that assess learning deficits as a function of preexpo
sure to irrelevant stimuli, (C) 2001 Academic Press.