What is it about?
We constantly scan the visual scene in front of us. Three major elements determine where exactly we direct our gaze: (1) how much different objects naturally stand out, (2) what, if anything, we are looking for, and (3) the objects and locations that we have recently examined. The importance of the first two elements has been known for some time, whereas that of the third element has only become clear more recently. This paper investigates the contributions of this third factor. We found that, for monkeys performing a relatively simple visual search task in which the sought target was always highly salient, recent history played an unexpectedly large role. The monkeys' success at finding the target in a particular trial depended to a large degree on the colors of the prior targets and the locations where they had appeared.
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Why is it important?
Understanding visual search is important because it engages many of the mechanisms that determine complex behavior at large (i.e., attention, working memory, recall of task rules, etc.). We found that the probability of finding the target was much higher when the target color and target location were repeated than when they switched from one trial to the next, and these effects never faded, even after months of practice. This means that behavioral performance may be strongly swayed by short-term adaptation mechanisms that are fast, involuntary, and may not be immediately apparent. Furthermore, multiple such mechanisms (e.g., color-based, location-based) may make independent contributions to a given task.
Perspectives
We were excited by the findings because they relate to real-life situations in which fast reactions are influenced by recent history. Sports provide many examples. A curve ball is much harder to hit when it follows several fastballs; a tennis serve to the T is much harder to return when it follows several wide serves; etc. The results show that, in these situations, the switch in strategy or condition is highly effective not only because it may be unexpected, but also because the perceptual system is less able to deal with it after multiple repetitions of a different condition.
Emilio Salinas
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Location- and feature-based selection histories make independent, qualitatively distinct contributions to urgent visuomotor performance, eLife, June 2025, eLife,
DOI: 10.7554/elife.100280.
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