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Fachbereichskolloquium: Prof. Dr. Joy Geng

„Rethinking the target template in visual search: the role of learned expectations”

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Prof. Dr. Joy Geng, University of California Davis
„Rethinking the target template in visual search: the role of learned expectations”

Models of attention posit the existence of a target, or attentional, template in working memory. Traditionally, the template has been characterized as con-taining a static and veridical representation of the target that is most efficient when highly precise. In this talk, I will share data from my lab that challenges this notion and instead suggests that the target template is highly flexible and contains information that maximizes the ability to distinguish targets from dis-tractors. This information is often off-veridical and determined by expecta-tions about the local stimulus context, target variability, and learned associa-tions. Our results indicate that the purpose of the target template is to maxim-ize target-to-distractor distinctiveness as efficiently as possible and that doing so often relies on information beyond the visual features of the target object.