No evidence for facilitated response-related processing in contextual cueing

Abstract

Visual search can be facilitated by learning statistical regularities; for example, repeated exposure to the same spatial layout of search items can speed target detection (contextual cueing). While contextual cueing is usually attributed to improved attentional guidance towards the target, some studies have proposed that the benefit for repeated search layouts may also facilitate response-related processing after the target has been localized. To test this latter account, the current study systematically manipulated the difficulty of the target-related decision by varying the number of possible response alternatives, while keeping attentional guidance constant. If response selection is facilitated by the repeated contexts, a more difficult target-related decision should leave more space for a benefit of contextual cueing to emerge, compared to that with an easier response selection. The results from Experiment 1 showed that contextual cueing was not improved with four versus two possible response alternatives, thus indicating that repeated contexts do not facilitate response selection. Moreover, Experiments 2 and 3 then provided additional, “learnable” (i.e., repeating and thus predictable) response cues, but this manipulation also did not enhance contextual cueing, with neither two nor four possible response alternatives. This pattern of results thus suggests that contextual cueing primarily facilitates attentional guidance and does not extend to response-related processing after locating a to-be-searched for target, even when consistent response regularities are available.

All raw trial-level data, subject means and data-analysis scripts have been made publicly available via the Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/pdtwy/. The design and the analysis plans for the experiments were not preregistered.