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Philipps-Universität Marburg
Abstract
According to attentional theories of associative learning, organisms tend to prioritize items with a
higher predictive value over those with a lower predictive value. We investigated whether experiencing
a semantic categorization task with naturalistic object images influences attentional selection in
a subsequent visual search task. Participants first categorized either between tool and vehicle or between
fruit and vegetable. In the subsequent search task, they searched for a new target object and
ignored a distractor that was either from the category they had to distinguish in the former learning
task or from a nonrelevant category. We assumed that the extent these distractors interfered with selecting
the target depended on their former response predictiveness. Search times were analyzed by
using a hierarchical learning curve model. The results showed that objects from previously response
predictive categories impaired performance to a greater degree than objects from nonpredicitive
categories, regardless of particular object categories. The findings suggest that categorization learning
from both basic and superordinate level categories can impact attentional control settings similarly,
with fruit and vegetable more likely being basic level categories and tool and vehicle being
superordinate level categories.
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Except where otherwised noted, this item's license is described as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 - CC BY NC ND