Salient distractors influence information accrual rather than quitting threshold in visual search

Abstract

Moher (Psychological Science, 31[1], 31–42, 2020) recently reported that adding a salient distractor (SD) to a visual search display results in more misses and faster target-absent reaction times, a pattern interpreted as a reduction in the quitting threshold; participants searched less of the display before responding target absent. This finding could have implications for real-world searches with distraction. However, in those experiments, the salient distractor shared critical features with the frequent distractors. In two experiments, we expand on this finding by showing that the pattern of results maintains when a salient distractor does not share critical features with the frequent distractors but reverses when it shares features with the target. The pattern of results is consistent with the salient distractor providing a rapid accumulation of evidence towards its associated boundary in a drift diffusion framework—when it shares features with the target there is a burst of evidence accumulation toward the “present” boundary; when it is a distractor there is a burst of evidence toward the “absent” boundary. We believe this account of the SD’s impact provides a more parsimonious account than a quitting threshold account and can better explain when a salient distractor will harm or help target detection.