Hiding the Rabbit: Using a genetic algorithm to investigate shape guidance in visual search.

ABSTRACT: During visual search, attention is guided by specific features, including shape. Our understanding of shape guidance is limited to specific attributes (closures and line terminations) that do not fully explain the richness of preattentive shape processing. We used a novel genetic algorithm method to explore shape space and to stimulate hypotheses about shape guidance. Initially, observers searched for targets among 12 random distractors defined, in radial frequency space, by the amplitude and phase of 10 radial frequencies. Reaction time (RT) was the measure of "fitness." To evolve toward an easier search task, distractors with faster RTs survived to the next generation, "mated," and produced offspring (new distractors for the next generation of search). To evolve a harder search, survivin

SUBMITTER: Aizenman AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8762685 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature