Role of facilitatory and inhibitory short-term memory mechanisms for the guidance of visual search

In the visual search paradigm, participants’ task is to detect the
presence or absence of a target item, which is presented in an
array of distractor items. Usually it is found that performance is
dependent on specific properties of the visual display, for
example, the number of items to be searched or the similarity
between display items. However, recent research has demonstrated
that memory mechanisms can also affect search behaviour. Further,
it was found that memory mechanisms can, in principle, be either
facilitatory or inhibitory, that is, that the processing of the
item locations, features, or search objects themselves can be
improved or impeded, respectively. This thesis investigated the
effects of (1) facilitatory and inhibitory memory mechanisms based
on the element positions within the search display; (2)
facilitatory memory mechanisms based on the features of the search
elements; and (3) inhibitory memory mechanisms based on the search
objects themselves.