Dual mechanisms of contextual cueing in immersive visual search

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21306232
AutoresArtyom Zinchenko (0000-0003-2728-0981, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, autor de correspondencia), Ananya Mandal (0000-0002-2627-0733, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), Heinrich R Liesefeld (0000-0003-4551-8607, University of Bremen), Daniel Weinert, Thomas Geyer (0000-0003-2380-1188, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Año2026
Volumen273
Páginas106540
Fecha de publicación2026-08-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCognition (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0010-0277 • E-ISSN: 1873-7838
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106540
PMID41930876
OpenAlexW7147301966
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas55

Natural environments are typically stable, allowing humans to form internal statistical models of spatial regularities that can subsequently guide attention during visual search—a phenomenon known as contextual cueing. Whereas most previous studies relied on two-dimensional displays confined to computer screens, we used head-mounted virtual reality to create large-scale search scenes that required head movements to allow the target to enter the field of view. Across two experiments ( N = 99), participants incidentally learned spatially consistent layouts that facilitated search for targets appearing both inside and outside the initial viewpoint. Analyses of spatiotemporal head point sequences using Dynamic Time Warping revealed two distinct forms of contextual learning: display-specific memories of individual repeated contexts and procedural memories for more efficient head scanning across the entire set of (repeated) displays. Our findings suggest that statistical learning may support the development of more efficient head-scanning procedures that are applied across the entire set of displays, helping observers balance motor costs and search efficiency in large-scale environments. Significance statement • Prior experience with how items tend to co-occur in scenes can facilitate visual search, even when participants are not explicitly told to memorize the scenes. • This incidental contextual-cueing effect is typically attributed to display-specific memories about co-occurring target and distractor elements, which can subsequently cue attention toward likely target locations in the search display. • Here, we use head-mounted immersive virtual reality (VR) to create a large-scale visual-search environment of spatially consistent (vs. inconsistent) item arrangements to test how N = 99 human participants (learn to) search for targets appearing inside and outside the initial field of view and thus better approximate statistical learning in ecologically valid search conditions. • We find that contextual facilitation in large-scale visual search is partially driven by more effective head-scanning routines adapted to recurring target positions across the entire set of displays. • We also find that spatially consistent displays are learned in individual long-term memory ‘template’ representations, though these representations only contain information about the repeated search context (rather than information about target-distractor associations)

Cognition · Dual (grammatical number) · Eye tracking · Visual perception · Visual Search · Face Recognition and Perception · Visual Attention and Saliency Detection · Visual perception and processing mechanisms