Attentional guidance of the eyes by contextual information and abrupt onsets

Contextual cuing is a memory-based phenomenon in which previously encounter ed global pattern information in a display can automatically guide attentio n to the location of a target (Chun & Jiang, 1998), leading to rapid and ac curate responses. What is not clear is how contextual cuing works. By monit oring eye movements, we investigated the roles that recognition and guidanc e play in contextual cuing. Recognition does not appear to occur on every t rial and sometimes does not have its effects until later in the search proc ess. When recognition does occur, attention is guided straight to the targe t rather than in the general direction. In Experiment 2, we investigated th e interaction between memory-driven search (contextual cuing) and stimulus- driven attentional capture by abrupt onsets. Contextual cuing was able to o verride capture by abrupt onsets. In contrast, onsets had almost no effect on the degree of contextual cuing. These data are discussed in terms of the role of top-down and bottom-up factors in the guidance of attention in vis ual search.