{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/108333"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/108333","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Investigating the contribution of parallel processing to visual search performance according to the Target Contrast Signal Theory","abstract":"Visually searching around our environment is a common behavior that underlies many tasks we do each day, such as searching the roadway while driving. But the attention demands of such a task can vary depending on the roadway condition: it can be very easy on rural roads, when there are fewer objects and cars, or it can be very difficult when driving in a city where there are many other vehicles. This ubiquitous search behavior is studied in the lab through the visual search paradigm. Contrary to the traditional notion of a pre-attentive stage that is based on saliency or target activation maps, Target Contrast Signal Theory (TCST) proposes that parallel processing in early vision involves evidence accumulation about how likely a given location is to contain the target in effort to reject items from further processing. The experiments presented and proposed in this thesis further our knowledge and understanding about this early parallel processing in visual search and allows us to extend previous findings of parallel processing to new tasks and applications. Chapter 1 serves as a general introduction into visual search and provides a discussion of TCST. Chapter 2 investigates the role of color affordance in visual search by equating stimuli color and luminance. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between this visual search efficiency and working memory, using TCST as the theoretical model to separate parallel processing from serial processing. Chapter 4 investigates the flexibility of early parallel processing, comparing a target discrimination task and a detection task, highlighting the variability between the two tasks, and interrogating how search is terminated with parallel processing.","abstract_html":"Visually searching around our environment is a common behavior that underlies many tasks we do each day, such as searching the roadway while driving. But the attention demands of such a task can vary depending on the roadway condition: it can be very easy on rural roads, when there are fewer objects and cars, or it can be very difficult when driving in a city where there are many other vehicles. This ubiquitous search behavior is studied in the lab through the visual search paradigm. Contrary to the traditional notion of a pre-attentive stage that is based on saliency or target activation maps, Target Contrast Signal Theory (TCST) proposes that parallel processing in early vision involves evidence accumulation about how likely a given location is to contain the target in effort to reject items from further processing. The experiments presented and proposed in this thesis further our knowledge and understanding about this early parallel processing in visual search and allows us to extend previous findings of parallel processing to new tasks and applications. Chapter 1 serves as a general introduction into visual search and provides a discussion of TCST. Chapter 2 investigates the role of color affordance in visual search by equating stimuli color and luminance. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between this visual search efficiency and working memory, using TCST as the theoretical model to separate parallel processing from serial processing. Chapter 4 investigates the flexibility of early parallel processing, comparing a target discrimination task and a detection task, highlighting the variability between the two tasks, and interrogating how search is terminated with parallel processing.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Madison, Anna M"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Lleras, Alejandro","Buetti, Simona","Beck, Diane","Wang, Ranxiao (Fances)","Morrow, Dan"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2020,"date_issued":"2020-08-27T00:51:30Z","date_published":"2020-08-27T00:51:30Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:48Z","subjects":["Visual search","Parallel processing"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2020 Anna Madison"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108333","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Lleras, Alejandro","Buetti, Simona","Beck, Diane","Wang, Ranxiao (Fances)","Morrow, Dan"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Madison, Anna M"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2020-08-27T00:51:30Z","2022-08-27T00:51:40Z","2020-05-07","2020-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Psychology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Visual search","Parallel processing"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2020 Anna Madison"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108333"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Visually searching around our environment is a common behavior that underlies many tasks we do each day, such as searching the roadway while driving. But the attention demands of such a task can vary depending on the roadway condition: it can be very easy on rural roads, when there are fewer objects and cars, or it can be very difficult when driving in a city where there are many other vehicles. This ubiquitous search behavior is studied in the lab through the visual search paradigm. Contrary to the traditional notion of a pre-attentive stage that is based on saliency or target activation maps, Target Contrast Signal Theory (TCST) proposes that parallel processing in early vision involves evidence accumulation about how likely a given location is to contain the target in effort to reject items from further processing. The experiments presented and proposed in this thesis further our knowledge and understanding about this early parallel processing in visual search and allows us to extend previous findings of parallel processing to new tasks and applications. Chapter 1 serves as a general introduction into visual search and provides a discussion of TCST. Chapter 2 investigates the role of color affordance in visual search by equating stimuli color and luminance. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between this visual search efficiency and working memory, using TCST as the theoretical model to separate parallel processing from serial processing. Chapter 4 investigates the flexibility of early parallel processing, comparing a target discrimination task and a detection task, highlighting the variability between the two tasks, and interrogating how search is terminated with parallel processing.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2022-05-01","The student, Anna Madison, accepted the attached license on 2020-05-07 at 09:09.","The student, Anna Madison, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2020-05-07 at 11:31.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2020-05-07 at 14:56.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #15267 on 2020-08-25 at 17:43:52","Made available in DSpace on 2020-08-27T00:51:30Z (GMT). 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But the attention demands of such a task can vary depending on the roadway condition: it can be very easy on rural roads, when there are fewer objects and cars, or it can be very difficult when driving in a city where there are many other vehicles. This ubiquitous search behavior is studied in the lab through the visual search paradigm. Contrary to the traditional notion of a pre-attentive stage that is based on saliency or target activation maps, Target Contrast Signal Theory (TCST) proposes that parallel processing in early vision involves evidence accumulation about how likely a given location is to contain the target in effort to reject items from further processing. The experiments presented and proposed in this thesis further our knowledge and understanding about this early parallel processing in visual search and allows us to extend previous findings of parallel processing to new tasks and applications. Chapter 1 serves as a general introduction into visual search and provides a discussion of TCST. Chapter 2 investigates the role of color affordance in visual search by equating stimuli color and luminance. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between this visual search efficiency and working memory, using TCST as the theoretical model to separate parallel processing from serial processing. Chapter 4 investigates the flexibility of early parallel processing, comparing a target discrimination task and a detection task, highlighting the variability between the two tasks, and interrogating how search is terminated with parallel processing.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2022-05-01","The student, Anna Madison, accepted the attached license on 2020-05-07 at 09:09.","The student, Anna Madison, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2020-05-07 at 11:31.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2020-05-07 at 14:56.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #15267 on 2020-08-25 at 17:43:52","Made available in DSpace on 2020-08-27T00:51:30Z (GMT). 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