Day 35 of 150 Pattern Difficulty 8/10
Q pops out among Os; absence of a feature does not
Quick answer
Q pops out among Os; absence of a feature does not. Today's question (Search asymmetry) asks about a finding from Treisman, A., & Souther, J. in 1985. The correct option is The "Q" feature (the line segment) is preattentively detected; its absence is not — full explanation, primary source, and glossary cross-links below.
Today's question
Treisman & Souther (1985) reported a search asymmetry: a Q among Os pops out, but an O among Qs requires serial search. This asymmetry implies that:
Reveal the answer and explanation
Correct: B — The "Q" feature (the line segment) is preattentively detected; its absence is not
A Q is an O plus a feature (the diagonal stroke). Search for the present feature — the Q among Os — is independent of set size: pop-out via parallel feature maps. Search for feature absence — finding the plain O surrounded by Qs — scales linearly with set size, demanding focal attention. Search asymmetries thus diagnose which primitives the visual system encodes preattentively. The result extended Treisman & Gelade (1980) and gave a clean experimental tool for inventorying the brain's feature dictionary.
About the source
Treisman, A., & Souther, J. (1985). Search asymmetry: A diagnostic for preattentive processing of separable features. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 114(3), 285–310.
Every Cognition Bible question cites a primary source — a paper, book chapter, or monograph that exists, that we can point to on Google Scholar, and whose finding the question accurately summarizes. No fabricated authority strings, no name-drops without paper-level grounding.
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