a configural dominant account of contextual cueing: configural cues are stronger than colour cues

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A configural dominant account of contextualcueing: Configural cues are stronger thancolour cuesMelina A. Kunara, Rebecca Johna & Hollie Sweetmana

a Department of Psychology, The University of Warwick, Coventry, UKAccepted author version posted online: 07 Nov 2013.Published online: 09Dec 2013.

To cite this article: Melina A. Kunar, Rebecca John & Hollie Sweetman (2014) A configural dominant accountof contextual cueing: Configural cues are stronger than colour cues, The Quarterly Journal of ExperimentalPsychology, 67:7, 1366-1382, DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2013.863373

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A configural dominant account of contextual cueing:Configural cues are stronger than colour cues

Melina A. Kunar, Rebecca John, and Hollie Sweetman

Department of Psychology, The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

Previous work has shown that reaction times to find a target in displays that have been repeated arefaster than those for displays that have never been seen before. This learning effect, termed “contextualcueing” (CC), has been shown using contexts such as the configuration of the distractors in the displayand the background colour. However, it is not clear how these two contexts interact to facilitate search.We investigated this here by comparing the strengths of these two cues when they appeared together. InExperiment 1, participants searched for a target that was cued by both colour and distractor configuralcues, compared with when the target was only predicted by configural information. The results showedthat the addition of a colour cue did not increase contextual cueing. In Experiment 2, participantssearched for a target that was cued by both colour and distractor configuration compared with whenthe target was only cued by colour. The results showed that adding a predictive configural cue led toa stronger CC benefit. Experiments 3 and 4 tested the disruptive effects of removing either alearned colour cue or a learned configural cue and whether there was cue competition when colourand configural cues were presented together. Removing the configural cue was more disruptive toCC than removing colour, and configural learning was shown to overshadow the learning of colourcues. The data support a configural dominant account of CC, where configural cues act as the strongercue in comparison to colour when they are presented together.

Keywords: Contextual cueing; Configuration; Colour; Visual search; Visual attention.

People perform visual search tasks on a daily basis.These can range from searching for a car in a carpark to looking for a friend in a crowd. In thesetasks, an abundance of information can enter thevisual system, and if a person were to attend to allthe stimuli at once they would be overwhelmed.To compensate for this, the visual system hasnumerous mechanisms designed to help the selec-tion and processing of relevant information andthe filtering and rejection of irrelevant information.For example, visual mechanisms can prioritize newor recently added information (e.g., Yantis &

Jonides, 1984), inhibit already searched or oldinformation (e.g., Klein, 1988; Klein &MacInnes, 1999; Watson & Humphreys, 1997),and form top-down sets for stimuli that match anattentional goal-state (e.g., Egeth, Virzi, &Garbart, 1984; Folk, Remington, & Johnston,1992; Wolfe, Cave, & Franzel, 1989). Scientistsin the laboratory typically investigate humansearch behaviour by asking participants to find apredefined target item among competing distractoritems and recording the reaction times (RTs) anderror rates. From these measures, it can be

Correspondence should be addressed to Melina A. Kunar, Department of Psychology, The University of Warwick, Coventry CV4

7AL, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

The authors would like to thank James Brockmole for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. The authors would also

like to thank Phillippa Harrison and Anna Heinen for their assistance with data collection.

1366 © 2013 The Experimental Psychology Society

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2014

Vol. 67, No. 7, 1366–1382, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2013.863373

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mailto:[email protected]

determined how quickly, accurately, and efficientlypeople search different types of displays.

Previous work has shown that the context of asearch task can influence a person’s search behav-iour. For example, responses to objects were facili-tated when they appeared in semanticallyappropriate contexts and positions (e.g.,Biederman, 1972; Biederman, Mezzanotte, &Rabinowitz, 1982). This learning has also beenshown to facilitate response times even in displaysthat were absent from semantic meaning. Chunand Jiang (1998) showed that when participantswere asked to search for a target, T, amongrotated distractors, Ls, participants were faster torespond if the target–distractor layout was repeatedacross the experiment than with an unrepeateddisplay that had never been seen before. This learn-ing benefit, known as “contextual cueing” (CC),was suggested to be based on implicit memory(Chun & Jiang, 1998, 2003, although see Smyth& Shanks, 2008, for evidence of explicit learning).Through the literature, contextual cueing has beenshown to be a robust effect (e.g., Chun, 2000;Chun & Jiang, 1998, 1999, 2003; Endo &Takeda, 2004; Hoffmann & Sebald, 2005; Jiang& Chun, 2001; Jiang & Leung, 2005; Jiang,Song, & Rigas, 2005; Jiang & Wagner, 2004;Kunar, Flusberg, Horowitz, & Wolfe, 2007;Kunar, Flusberg, & Wolfe, 2006; Kunar &Wolfe, 2011; Lleras & Von Mühlenen, 2004;Olson & Chun, 2002; Tseng & Li, 2004) and isknown to survive certain display transformationssuch as being displaced, rescaled, or combinedwith another display (Jiang & Wagner, 2004).

Since the initial paper there have been severalstudies investigating how different properties canact as contextual cues. In the standard version ofcontextual cueing, the layout of the distractorscued the target’s location (Chun & Jiang, 1998).Brady and Chun (2007) suggested that in thesetypes of display it was the association betweenthe target and its nearby surrounding distractorsthat was important in obtaining a facilitationeffect (see also Kunar & Wolfe, 2011; Olson &Chun, 2002). When these local associationswere preserved, a contextual cueing effect wasseen even in cases where the rest of the display

changed (Brady & Chun, 2007; Olson & Chun,2002). Although traditionally the CC effect wasdemonstrated using spatial configurations, morerecently other contextual cues have been ident-ified. For example, Brockmole and Henderson(2006a, 2006b) found that a repeated backgroundusing photographs of natural scenes facilitatedboth RTs (Brockmole and Henderson, 2006a)and eye movements (Brockmole and Henderson,2006b) to a single target letter. Furthermore, acontextual cueing benefit was found if therepeated context was defined by complex “fractals”and geometrical images that made up the back-ground of the search display (Goujon,Brockmole, & Ehinger, 2012; Kunar et al.,2006), the colour of the search stimuli (Jiang &Chun, 2001; Jiang & Song, 2005; Kunar et al.,2006) or, important to this paper, the colour ofthe search background (Kunar et al., 2006).Understanding how these different contextualcues interact is important for obtaining a unifyingtheory of how predictive contexts work together tobenefit search overall. We investigated this here byexamining the relative strength of colour and con-figural cues when they appeared together to facili-tate search.

As mentioned above, Kunar et al. (2006)found that a predictive background colour couldbe used to speed response times to find a targetamong competing distractors. In Kunar et al.’s(2006) experiment, the location of the targetwas predicted by the global colour of the back-ground, rather than the configuration of the dis-tractor items (which were randomly generatedfrom trial to trial). In this case, people learnedthat in a context where the background colourwas red, regardless of where the distractorsappeared, the target would appear at location (x,y). However, the role of colour as a predictiveindicator of target in contextual cueing is contro-versial. Clearly, on its own in the absence of anyother predictive cue it can act as a successful con-textual cue (Kunar et al., 2006). However, whenit is combined with other predictive propertiesits role as an associative cue produces differingresults. Ehinger and Brockmole (2008) investi-gated the role that colour plays in contextual

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2014, 67 (7) 1367

CONFIGURAL VERSUS COLOUR CUES IN CC

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cueing using real-world scenes. In their exper-iments, Ehinger and Brockmole measured therate of contextual learning in photographicimages with their natural colours compared tothose that had their colours manipulated. In onecondition, they varied the colours of repeatedphotographs across the experiment (i.e., thepicture stayed the same but the colours changedacross repetitions). They found that despitethese colour changes the contextual cueingeffects were similar across conditions, suggestingthat colour was not important for real-world CC.

In contrast, Goujon et al. (2012) used geometri-cal figures as the repeated context. In their exper-iments, instead of using the configuration ofdistractor items, Goujon et al. (2012) used thepattern of different complex fractals (presented asdisplay backgrounds) as the predictive cues. Here,participants learned to associate a specific fractalimage with a specific target location. Their resultsfound that, when these repeated images wereused, colour played an important role. In theirfirst experiment, they found that if the learnedrepeated image underwent a colour change thencontextual cueing was reduced. Furthermore,when the colours of the image were varied acrossthe experiment (similar to the methodology ofEhinger & Brockmole, 2008), the contextualcueing effect was reduced compared to a conditionin which the colours of the repeated geometricalimages were invariant. Goujon et al. (2012)suggested that with nonsemantic displays, com-posed of visually complex images, colour played amore important role. From these previous studiesit seems that the importance of colour as a cuedepends on what other contexts were present.With the presence of semantic information,colour was irrelevant; however, in more abstractdisplays, colour becomes important.

Note that in the work of Goujon et al. (2012)the target was the only stimulus present in thedisplay. In their experiments, as the predictivecontext was established by the repeated geometri-cal images, there was no need for a predictive con-figural context outlined by the distractor layout.However, what happens if predictive configuralcues become available? Although the fractal

displays of Goujon et al. (2012) and the scene dis-plays of Ehinger and Brockmole (2008) werematched for visual complexity (i.e., they werematched for feature congestion, entropy, andedge density; see Rosenholtz, Li, & Nakano,2007), there were other differences in their dis-plays. For example, in photographic images,objects in the scenes could also act as “configural”landmarks predicting the target location (e.g., inthe photograph with the bridge, the targetappeared to the right of the building). In contrast,the geometric patterns used by Goujon et al.(2012) were made up of repeating fractals andthus contained fewer distinctive configural “land-marks”. It may be that when configural cuesbecome available they are weighted as moreimportant than colour cues. If so, this shouldalso occur in nonsemantic displays. We examinedthis here by investigating whether configural cuesor colour cues were more effective in producingcontextual cueing when they were presentedtogether.

The interaction of different contextual cues isimportant when we think about cue competition.It has been suggested that when two associativecues are presented concurrently they compete forattentional resources, leading to one of the cuesbeing “overshadowed” by the other (e.g., Matzel,Schachtman, & Miller, 1985). In this case, thepresence of a stronger cue results in weaker learn-ing of a lesser cue when they are presentedtogether than when both cues are presented sep-arately. This has been shown by Endo andTakeda (2004) who found that a contextualcueing effect occurred when distractor configur-ation on its own provided the predictive contextand when object identities of the stimuli ontheir own provided the predictive context.However, when the predictive cues of distractorconfiguration and object identity were learnedconcurrently, participants only showed a contex-tual cueing effect for the configural context butnot for object identity. Furthermore, Rosenbaumand Jiang (2013) found that although bothrepeated scenes and repeated distractor configur-ations produced robust contextual cueing whenpresented on their own, when these cues were

1368 THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2014, 67 (7)

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presented concurrently, the contextual learningprovided by scenes overshadowed the learningprovided by distractor configuration.

It is clear that presenting two cues together maylead one cue to overshadow the other. Knowingthis, we investigated whether cue competition alsooccurs when distractor configuration and colourbackground cues are presented concurrently in acontextual cueing task. We tested two accountslooking at the relative strengths of colour and con-figural cues when they are combined. The colourdominant account suggests that when configuralcues and colour cues were presented together insimple search tasks, colour cues would act as thedominant cue, producing a stronger RT benefit.Ehinger and Brockmole (2008) predicted this,suggesting that if colour could be used to recognizefamiliar contexts with more abstract stimuli (suchas letter search stimuli) it would play an importantrole. In contrast, the configural dominant accountsuggests that when invariant configural cues andcolour cues were presented together, configuralcues would act as the more dominant cue. Thus,even with the presence of a highly salient colourcue, the addition of configural information wouldlead to stronger CC.

We present four experiments. Experiment 1compared the CC effect when participants werecued with both a predictive colour backgroundand a predictive configuration to the effect whenthey were just cued by the configuration on itsown. If colour acts as a stronger cue, as predictedby the colour dominant account, then we wouldexpect to see a larger CC effect when the colourcue was present. Experiment 2 compared the CCeffect when participants were cued with both a pre-dictive colour background and a predictive con-figuration to the effect when they were just cuedby a colour cue on its own. If configuration actsas a stronger cue, as predicted by the configuraldominant account, then we would expect to see alarger CC effect with the addition of predictive dis-tractor layouts. Experiment 3 investigated whetherthe CC effect was disrupted more if the learnedcolour cue was removed from the display thanwith the predictive configuration. Participantswere trained on contexts where both the

configuration and the background colour predictedthe target location. In a subsequent test phase,either the configuration or the colour cue wasremoved. The results showed that removing config-ural cues disrupted CC more than removing colourcues. Experiment 4 tested whether the learning ofconfigural cues overshadowed the learning of back-ground colour cues. Participants were trained oncontexts where both the configuration and thebackground colour predicted the target location.In a subsequent test phase, the configuration cuewas removed. The results showed that whencolour cues had been learned in combination withconfigural cues, a weaker CC effect was observedthan when colour cues had been learned on theirown. The results add to the evidence showing cuecompetition in contextual learning and are dis-cussed in favour of a configural dominant accountof CC.

EXPERIMENT 1

Method

ParticipantsTwenty participants (14 female) were recruited totake part in the experiment. Their ages rangedfrom 20 to 49 years (mean= 22.5 years). All par-ticipants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.

Apparatus and stimuliDisplays were generated and responses recorded byBlitz Basic running on a PC. The distractor itemswere white L shapes presented randomly in oneof four orientations (0, 90, 180, or 270°). Thetarget item was a white T, rotated 90° either tothe left or to the right with equal probability.Each L contained a small offset (approximately0.3°) at the line junction to make search more dif-ficult. All stimuli subtended 1.7°× 1.7°, at aviewing distance of 57.4 cm.

ProcedureThere were two conditions in this experiment: theconfigural condition and the combined condition.Both conditions consisted of a training phase,



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which established learning, and a test phase, whichmeasured CC (see also Brady & Chun, 2007;Kunar & Wolfe, 2011; Makovski & Jiang, 2010).The training phase consisted of seven epochs.Each epoch had four repeated displays, which wereshown eight times per epoch. Thus, over sevenepochs, each repeated display was shown 56 times.Previous work has shown that by increasing thenumber of repetitions and decreasing the numberof repeated displays, stronger contextual learningoccurs, resulting in large contextual cueing effects(e.g., Kunar et al., 2006, 2007, 2008). This is impor-tant when it comes to comparing contextual cueingacross conditions as it is crucial to demonstratestrong contextual learning to start with, beforemeasuring any detrimental effect, resulting fromthe experimental manipulation (e.g., Kunar,Watson, Cole, & Cox, 2013). The test phase waspresented straight after the training phase and con-tained 96 repeated trials (the four repeated trialsfrom the training phase, each shown 24 times toensure that sufficient data were collected to reducemeasurement error) and 96 unrepeated trials thathad never been seen before. Following past studies,the number of possible target locations in the unre-peated trials matched those of the repeated trials toshow that in repeated trials participants were learn-ing the contexts and not just the target locations(e.g., Chun & Jiang, 1998, Kunar et al., 2007;Kunar & Wolfe, 2011).

In the configural condition, the distractorlocations cued the target position (similar to theoriginal task of Chun & Jiang, 1998). Here, thebackground colour for each trial was alwaysblack. At the beginning of the condition, eachrepeated target was paired with a randomly gen-erated set of distractor locations that remainedinvariant throughout the experiment (makingfour repeated displays; see also Kunar et al.,2006, 2007, 2008). For the unrepeated trials,the distractor configuration for each targetlocation was randomly generated at the start ofevery trial, to produce new displays that hadnever been seen before. The combined conditionwas similar to the configural condition, exceptthat the repeated trials also had an extra cue ofthe background colour of the display. Here,

each repeated target location was paired with aset of invariant distractor locations and a uniquebackground colour (red, green, blue, or yellow).Each stimulus in the combined condition waspresented in a surrounding black box of dimen-sions 2.6°× 2.6°, at a viewing distance of 57.4cm. This was done to ensure that the luminancecontrast of all stimuli to their local backgroundwas equated across trials, regardless of theglobal background colour (see Kunar et al.,2006). Like the configural condition, the distrac-tor configuration for the unrepeated trials wasalso randomly generated at the start of everytrial so that it was uninformative as to thetarget’s location, and the background was alwaysblack.

The total set size of each display was 12 (onetarget item and 11 distractor items). For alltrials, participants were asked to search for thetarget, T, and press the letter “m” or “z” if thebottom of the T was facing right or left, respect-ively, and respond as quickly but as accurately aspossible. Each condition was presented in aseparate block of trials (each block lastingapproximately 30 minutes), and a within-partici-pants design was used where each participantcompleted both blocks in one experimentalsession. The presentation of conditions acrossparticipants was counterbalanced, and partici-pants were given a short practice session beforeeach experimental block. Example displays canbe seen in Figure 1.

Results and discussion

Overall errors were low at 3.0%. Unless otherwisenoted, all effects referred to as statistically signifi-cant throughout the text are associated with pvalues below .05, two-tailed. Reaction times lessthan 200 ms and greater than 4000 ms wereremoved. This led to the removal of 0.4% of thedata. Figure 2(a) shows the mean correct reactiontimes across epochs for the configural cueing con-dition and the combined cueing condition in thetraining phase. A 2× 7 analysis of variance(ANOVA) on correct RTs with factors of con-dition (configural cue vs. combined) and epoch



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(Epochs 1–7) revealed a main effect of epoch, F(6,114)= 55.27, p, .01, where RTs decreased acrossthe experiment. However, there was no main effectof condition (F, 1), neither was the Condition×Epoch interaction significant (F, 1). The resultsshowed that there was no difference in RTs tofind a target when it was predicted by the distractorconfiguration, in the training phase, or by both thedistractor configuration and the background colourof the display.

Figure 2(b) shows the mean correct RTs forboth the repeated and unrepeated trials in the con-figural and combined conditions. Contextualcueing occurs when RTs for repeated displays arefaster than those of unrepeated displays (Chun &Jiang, 1998). To investigate the extent of cueing,mean correct RTs in the test phase were enteredinto a 2× 2 ANOVA with factors of condition(configural vs. combined) and display type(repeated vs. unrepeated). The analysis showed anoverall contextual cueing effect, with a main effectof display type, F(1, 19)= 20.16, p, .01. RTsfor repeated displays were faster than those forunrepeated displays. However, there was no maineffect of condition, F(1, 19)= 1.25, p= .28.Neither was the Condition×Display Type inter-action significant, F(1, 19)= 1.14, p= .30. Therewas no statistical difference in CC effects between

Figure 1. Example displays for Experiment 1. In the configural condition, the target location was predicted by the spatial layout. In the

combined condition, the target location was predicted by both the spatial layout and the background colour (depicted by the different shades

of grey). Note that in the experiment proper, the set size equalled 12, and a black box surrounded each stimulus in the combined/colour conditions.

Figure 2. Mean correct reaction times (RTs) for (a) the training

phase across epoch and (b) the test phase in Experiment 1. Error

bars represent the standard error.



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the two conditions.1 Corresponding analysis oferror rates (for the training phase and test phase)showed no significant effects (all Fs, 1.3).

Adding a predictive colour cue to the display didnot elicit a larger CC effect compared to when thespatial layout predicted the target location on itsown. In the training phase, RTs in both conditionsdecreased at the same rate, suggesting equivalentlearning, regardless of the extra colour cue in thecombined condition. This notion was confirmed inthe test phase, where although there was an overallCC effect, there was no CC difference betweenthe two conditions. Despite the extra colour cue,the contextual cueing benefit was not increased.

The data are difficult to reconcile with thecolour dominant account of CC. This account pro-posed that, when colour and configural cues werepresented together, colour would dominate, produ-cing evidence of strong contextual cueing.However, this did not occur. These data are sur-prising given that colour is a highly salient cue.Goujon et al. (2012) found that when usingabstract stimuli where only the target was present,colour played an important role. In contrast, inthese displays colour cues were presented alongsidepredictive configural cues. Under these circum-stances, adding colour did not lead to greater CCover and above the distractor configuration.Although these data are difficult to account for interms of a colour dominant account of CC, theycould be explained by a configural dominantaccount. To investigate this further, Experiment 2compared the RT advantage obtained when config-ural cues were presented in addition to predictivecolour cues. According to a configural dominantaccount, a greater CC effect would occur when apredictive spatial layout was added.

It may also be the case that instead of configur-ation being the dominant cue, people contextuallylearned whatever cue was available and consistentlypredictive. That is, as configuration was a

consistent and predictive cue in both conditionsin Experiment 1, it was preferentially learned overcolour. If this was the case, then if colour was theconsistently predictive cue in both conditions itshould act as the stronger cue. This was alsotested in Experiment 2 where colour rather thanconfiguration was the constant cue.

EXPERIMENT 2

Method

ParticipantsTwenty-four participants (17 female) wererecruited to take part in the experiment. Theirages ranged from 19 to 41 years (mean= 21.4years). All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.

Apparatus and stimuliThe apparatus and stimuli were similar to those inExperiment 1.

ProcedureThere were two conditions: the colour cueing con-dition and the combined cueing condition. Thecombined cueing condition was identical to thatin Experiment 1. The colour cueing conditionwas similar to the combined cueing condition,except that only the background colour cued thetarget location. Here, the target position remainedinvariant within a repeated display; however, thedistractor positions were randomly generated atthe start of each trial. Example displays can befound in Figure 3.


Overall errors were low at 3.3%. Reaction times lessthan 200 ms and greater than 4000 ms were

1Given that there were 24 repetitions of repeated trials in the test phase, additional learning of the repeated displays could have

continued. However, further analysis of both conditions showed that there was no difference in the contextual cueing effect

between the first and last halves of the test phase [t(19)= 1.61, p= .12, and t(19)= 1.65, p= .12, for the configural and combined

condition, respectively]. This is likely to be because contextual cueing had already reached an asymptotic level (e.g., see also Chun

& Jiang, 1998).



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removed. This led to the removal of 0.7% of the data.Figure 4 shows the mean correct reaction times(RTs) for the colour cueing condition and the com-bined cueing condition for the training phase acrossepochs and for the test phase. In the training phase, a2× 7 ANOVA on correct RTs with factors of con-dition (colour vs. combined) and epoch (Epochs 1–7) showed there to be a main effect of condition,F(1, 23)= 10.76, p, .01, where RTs in the com-bined condition were faster overall than those inthe colour condition, and a main effect of epoch,F(6, 138)= 29.55, p, .01, where RTs decreasedacross the experiment. However there was no signifi-cant Condition×Epoch interaction, F(6, 138)=1.09, p= .37.

To investigate the extent of cueing, mean correctRTs from both cueing conditions in the test phasewere entered into a 2× 2 ANOVA on correct RTswith factors of condition (colour vs. combined) anddisplay type (repeated vs. unrepeated). The analysisshowed that there was a main effect of condition,F(1, 23)= 9.27, p, .01, with faster RTs in thecombined condition than in the colour condition,and a main effect of display type, F(1, 23)= 22.46,p, .01, with faster RTs for repeated displays thanfor unrepeated displays. The Condition×DisplayType interaction was also significant, F(1,23)= 6.74, p, .05. Post hoc t-tests betweenrepeated and unrepeated RTs showed that a


phase across epoch and (b) the test phase in Experiment 2. Error

bars represent the standard error.

Figure 3. Example displays for Experiment 2. In the colour condition, the target location was predicted by the background colour (depicted by

the different shades of grey). In the combined condition, the target location was predicted by both the spatial layout and the background colour.



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contextual cueing effect occurred for both thecolour and combined conditions, t(23)= 2.53,p, .05, and t(23)= 4.54, p, .01, respectively.However, the magnitude of the CC effect forthe combined condition (235 ms) was greaterthan that for the colour condition (89 ms).Corresponding analysis of error rates (for thetraining phase and test phase) showed no signifi-cant effects, all Fs, 1.5, except the effect of con-dition in the test phase, F(1, 23)= 3.05, p= .09,where there was a trend for more errors to bemade in the combined cueing condition than inthe colour cueing condition. However, this differ-ence was small (3.8% vs. 2.8%, respectively).

The data showed a number of interesting results.First, in the training phase, RTs were faster whenboth the configuration and colour information pre-dicted the target location than when just the colourinformation was predictive. This was differentfrom the results of Experiment 1 where there wasno benefit of adding colour information to configuralcues. These results suggest that in the presence ofconfiguration, colour acts as a weaker cue. Theresults from the test phase supported this. Here,the CC effect was larger with the addition of thepredictive configural cues than with just the colouron its own. Although colour cues produced a facili-tation of RTs, adding invariant spatial cues to thedisplay led to a greater CC effect. These resultsagain contrasted to those from Experiment 1,where adding extra colour cues did not enhanceCC. Taken together, the two experiments suggestthat when presented concurrently, configurationhas a greater effect on CC than colour. Theseresults run counter to the colour dominant accountof CC. Furthermore, the results run counter to thehypothesis that people learned whatever cue thatwas consistently predictive. Here the consistentlypredictive cue across all conditions was colour;however, the addition of the colour cue did notlead to stronger CC. Instead the results are infavour of the configural dominant account of CC.

Experiments 1 and 2 suggested that colour was aweaker contextual cue than distractor configur-ation. To examine this further, we investigatedthe disruptive effect of removing either previouslylearned configural cues or previously learned

colour cues in Experiment 3. In this experiment,participants learned both predictive colour and con-figuration cues in a training phase; however, in atest phase, the colour cue was removed from onecondition, and the configural cue was removedfrom the other. If the colour dominant account iscorrect, then with colour acting as the strongercue, removing the colour background should bemore disruptive to CC than removing the spatiallayout. However, if the configural dominantaccount is correct, then with configural cuesacting as the stronger cue, removing the invariantdistractor configuration should be more disruptiveto CC than removing the colour.

EXPERIMENT 3

Method

ParticipantsTwenty participants (18 female) were recruited totake part in the experiment. Their ages rangedfrom 20 to 41 years (mean= 21.9 years). All par-ticipants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.


ProcedureThe procedure was similar to that of Experiment 1,except where stated otherwise. There were twoconditions: the colour-removed condition and theconfiguration-removed condition. In each con-dition there was a training phase of repeated trialsand a test phase of both repeated and unrepeatedtrials. For both conditions the training phase wasthe same as the combined conditions inExperiments 1 and 2 (i.e., both the configurationof the distractors and the background colour cuedthe target location). In the colour-removed con-dition, the predictive background colour wasremoved in the test phase. Thus, for repeatedtrials the background was black, and the spatiallayout was the only remaining contextual cue. Inthe configuration-removed condition, the



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predictive spatial layout of the distractors wasremoved in the test phase. Thus, the distractor pos-itions were randomly generated at the start of eachtrial; however, the colour cue remained the same asthat in the training phase. In both conditions, theunrepeated trials had neither a predictive colournor a spatial layout cue (all backgrounds wereblack, and the distractor positions were randomlygenerated on each trial). Example displays areshown in Figure 5.


Overall errors were low at 2.7%. Reaction times lessthan 200 ms and greater than 4000 ms wereremoved. This led to the removal of 0.1% of thedata. Figure 6 shows the mean correct reactiontimes (RTs) for the colour-removed conditionand the configuration-removed condition in boththe training phase, across epochs, and the testphase. In the training phase, a 2× 7 ANOVA oncorrect RTs with factors of condition (colour-removed vs. configural-removed) and epoch(Epochs 1–7) showed there to be a main effect ofepoch, F(6, 114)= 41.06, p, .01, where RTsdecreased across the experiment. However, therewas no main effect of condition, F(1, 19)= 1.41,p= .25, neither was the Condition×Epoch


phase across epoch and (b) the test phase in Experiment 3. Config

= configuration. Error bars represent the standard error.

Figure 5. Example displays for Experiment 3. In the test phase of the colour-removed condition, the background colour cue was removed so that

only the spatial layout cue predicted the target location. In the test phase of the configuration-removed condition, the spatial layout of the

distractors changed so that only the background colour predicted the target location.



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interaction significant, F(6, 114)= 1.57, p= .16.As expected, given that the displays in the trainingphase were identical, there was no difference inRTs between the two conditions.

To investigate the effect of removing each cuetype, mean correct RTs from both conditions inthe test phase were entered into a 2× 2 ANOVAwith factors of condition (colour-removed vs. con-figuration-removed) and display type (repeated vs.unrepeated). The analysis showed that there wasan overall cueing effect, with a main effect ofdisplay type, F(1, 19)= 18.88, p, .01. RTs inrepeated displays were faster than those in unre-peated displays. However, there was no maineffect of condition, F(1, 19)= 2.72, p= .12. TheCondition×Display Type interaction, on theother hand, was significant, F(1, 19)= 4.81,p, .05. Post hoc t-tests between repeated andunrepeated RTs showed that a contextual cueingeffect occurred for the colour-removed condition,t(19)= 5.09, p, .01, and a significant contextualcueing effect occurred for the configuration-removed condition, t(19)= 1.93, p, .04 (one-tailed). However, the magnitude of the CC effectfor the colour-removed condition (180 ms) wasgreater than that for the configural-removed con-dition (77 ms). Corresponding analysis of errorrates (for the training phase and test phase)showed no significant effects (all Fs, 3.1).

Removing the predictive configural cuesimpaired contextual cueing more than removingthe colour background. This occurred despitecolour being a highly salient feature. Collectively,the results from Experiments 1–3 showed that,when presented together configural cues act as astronger contextual cue than do colour cues.These results are consistent with a configural domi-nant account of CC.

Previous work has shown that when two cuescompete with one another, learning of one of thecues may be overshadowed by the other (e.g.,Endo & Takeda, 2004; Rosenbaum & Jiang,2013). Experiments 1–3 showed configuration tobe the dominant cue over colour. Experiment 4examines whether learning predictive configuralcues interferes with the ability to learn predictivecolour cues. Here, we compared the contextual

cueing effect found from purely learning predictivecolour backgrounds to the contextual cueing effectfound when people are trained on predictivecolour backgrounds and configurations and thenjust tested with colour cues. If people are able toeffectively learn colour cues in both conditions, asimilar CC effect should be observed in each con-dition. However, if the presence of configuralcues overshadows learning of colour cues, then asmaller CC effect should be observed when partici-pants learned colour and configuration cuescombined.

EXPERIMENT 4

Method

ParticipantsFourteen participants (10 female) were recruited totake part in the experiment. Their ages ranged from19 to 36 years (mean= 22.9 years). All participantshad normal or corrected-to-normal vision.


ProcedureThe procedure was similar to that of Experiment 2,except where stated otherwise. There were twoconditions: the colour cueing condition and theconfiguration-removed condition (taken fromExperiment 3). In each condition there was a train-ing phase of repeated trials and a test phase of bothrepeated and unrepeated trials. Therefore the effectof colour cueing in the test phase can be establishedin conditions where people learned a predictivecontext of colour alone (the colour cueing con-dition) and when colour cues were learned incombination with configural cues (the configur-ation-removed condition).


Overall errors were low at 1.4%. Reaction times lessthan 200 ms and greater than 4000 ms were



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removed. This led to the removal of 1.0% of thedata. Figure 7 shows the mean correct reactiontimes (RTs) for the colour cueing condition andthe configuration-removed condition in both thetraining phase, across epochs, and the test phase.In the training phase, a 2× 7 ANOVA oncorrect RTs with factors of condition (colourcueing vs. configural-removed) and epoch(Epochs 1–7) showed there to be a main effect ofcondition, F(1, 13)= 5.29, p, .05, where RTs inthe configuration-removed condition were fasterthan RTs in the colour condition, and a maineffect of epoch, F(6, 78)= 21.07, p, .01, whereRTs decreased across the experiment. However,the Condition×Epoch interaction was not signifi-cant, F(6, 78)= 1.18, p= .32.

To investigate the effect of colour cueing, meancorrect RTs from both conditions in the test phase

were entered into a 2× 2 ANOVA with factors ofcondition (colour cueing vs. configuration-removed) and display type (repeated vs. unre-peated). The analysis showed that the cueingeffect of display type just missed the conventionallevel of significance, F(1, 13)= 4.12, p= .06,where there was a trend for RTs in repeated dis-plays to be faster than those in unrepeated displays.The main effect of condition was not significant,F(1, 13)= 3.19, p= .097. Importantly, theCondition×Display Type interaction was signifi-cant, F(1, 13)= 4.84, p, .05. Post hoc t-testsbetween repeated and unrepeated RTs showedthat a contextual cueing effect occurred for thecolour condition, t(13)= 3.15, p, .01, but therewas no contextual cueing effect observed in theconfiguration-removed condition, t(13)= 0.02,p= .98. Corresponding analysis of error rates (forthe training phase and test phase) showed no sig-nificant effects, all Fs, 2.3, except theCondition×Epoch interaction in the trainingphase, F(6, 78)= 3.68, p, .01, where theretended to be fewer errors in Epochs 4–6 for thecolour condition but this pattern was reversed inother epochs, and the effect of display type in thetest phase, F(1, 13)= 3.32, p= .09, where therewas a trend for more errors in the repeated displaysthan in the unrepeated displays. However, thisdifference was small (1.8% vs. 1.0% for repeatedand unrepeated displays, respectively).

The results showed that the learning of predic-tive colour cues was overshadowed by the learningof the predictive configuration. A contextualcueing effect was observed when participants werepresented with predictive colour backgroundsalone in the colour cueing condition (see alsoKunar et al., 2006). However, little evidence ofcolour contextual cueing was observed when pre-dictive colour cues were presented alongside config-ural cues in the configuration-removed condition.Similar to Experiments 1–3, the results showedthat when participants are presented with both pre-dictive colour cues and configural cues, the learningof configuration seems to dominate.

One final point to note is that the configuration-removed condition in this experiment was similarto the configuration-removed condition in


phase across epoch and (b) the test phase in Experiment 4. Config

= configuration. Error bars represent the standard error.



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Experiment 3. However, the results of this exper-iment showed there to be little advantage ofhaving learned the predictive colour cues, whileExperiment 3 showed that there was a CCbenefit provided by the colour cues. It may bethat with both predictive colour and configurationcues, there is a weak benefit of learning the predic-tive colour cues (as suggested by Experiment 3).However, importantly to note, both experimentsshow that this learning is dramatically reducedwhen configural cues are present. We discuss thisfurther in the General Discussion.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

In contextual cueing, RTs to find targets inrepeated contexts are faster than RTs to findtargets in unrepeated contexts (Chun & Jiang,1998). Contextual cueing effects have been shownto occur with cues such as distractor configurations(e.g., Brady & Chun, 2007; Chun & Jiang, 1998),background colours (Kunar et al., 2006), and natur-alistic scenes (Brockmole & Henderson, 2006a,2006b). This paper compared the influence ofbackground colours and distractor configurationson contextual cueing. Experiment 1 investigatedwhether adding a predictive background colour toa predictive configuration increased CC. Theresults showed that there was little benefit ofadding colour over and above the distractor con-figuration. Experiment 2 investigated whetheradding a predictive configuration to a predictivebackground colour cue increased CC. In this exper-iment, adding a predictive configural context led toa stronger contextual cueing effect. Experiment 3showed that removing learned configural cues wasmore disruptive to CC than removing learnedcolour cues, while Experiment 4 showed thatwhen configural cues and colour cues were pre-sented concurrently, configural cues overshadowedthe learning of colour cues. The data fromExperiments 1–4 support a configural dominantaccount of CC, suggesting that when both config-ural and colour cues accurately predicted the targetlocation, configural cues acted as a stronger contex-tual cue than did colour cues.

The fact that configuration dominated in thisstudy may be due to the nature of the task. In visualsearch, participants need to attend to the searchstimuli to make a response and not the background.In these experiments, as participants have to processthe search stimuli to respond to the target, it makessense that the configuration of the stimuli, ratherthan the background, becomes associated with thetarget and acts as the dominant cue. Please notethat our results are different to the results ofRosenbaum and Jiang (2013) who found that whenconfiguration was presented with predictive scenes,configuration acted as the weaker cue. However,the difference may occur as scene-based learning isthought to occur due to explicit memory, ratherthan implicit memory. Explicit memory may helppeople directly guide their attention to the targetlocation via top-down processes, leading to largercueing effects (Rosenbaum & Jiang, 2013, see alsoJiang, Swallow, & Rosenbaum, 2013; Kunar et al.,2006) than those produced by implicit memory(Endo & Takeda, 2004; Kunar et al., 2007, 2008).Further evidence of this is reported by Jiménez andVázquez (2011) who found that implicit learning ofa sequence did not interfere with configural contex-tual cueing; however, explicit memory of the samesequence interfered with the expression of contextualcueing, but not the acquisition.

Within the literature, it is debated how onestimulus overshadows another. For example,Rescorla and Wagner (1972) have suggested thatwhen two cues are presented together they bothcompete for the same resources. As these resourcesare limited, the learning of a stronger cue wouldimpede learning of the weaker cue. In contrast,Matzel et al. (1985) suggested that the presence ofthe stronger cue prevents expression of the weakercue. In this case, the association between the stimulusand response of the weaker cue would still be learnedbut the expression of this learning would not bevisible in the presence of the stronger cue.Cleeremans (1997) investigated whether the pres-ence of a stronger cue actually hindered learning ofthe overshadowed stimulus or prevented expressionof it. In two experiments he gave participants adual-stimulus setting where a sequential contextcould be implicitly learned to indicate where the



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next stimulus would appear or the explicit presence ofan “X” cue could indicate where the next stimuluswould appear. Cleeremans (1997) found that partici-pants still showed sensitivity to the structure of thesequence, suggesting that participants had acquiredknowledge of the sequential structure even when asuperior and more explicit cue (e.g., the X) hadbeen presented. Beesley and Shanks (2012) alsofound that when two predictive contexts weretrained in compound, by the end of the experimentlearning of both sets of distractor patterns hadoccurred. In relation to the work presented here,the presentation of colour and configural cues couldbe thought of as a dual-stimulus setting as bothcues predicted the target location. Our resultssuggest that, similar to the work of Cleeremans(1997) and Beesley and Shanks (2012), the presenceof the stronger configural cue did not hinder learningof the predictive colour cues as both colour and con-figural cues showed evidence of being learned inunison (e.g., Experiment 3). Instead, having a stron-ger cue present was more likely to interfere with theexpression of the weaker cue when they were pre-sented together than when they were presented apart.

How do these results relate to others in the litera-ture? Ehinger and Brockmole (2008) found thatwhen using photographic stimuli, colour was notan important contextual cue. Despite this, they pre-dicted that colour would be profitable when the dis-plays were made of simpler stimuli. Goujon et al.(2012) found this to be the case when using abstractgeometrical patterns as cues. However, this did notoccur here:When configuration and colour were pre-sented together, using simple letter visual searcharrays, colour was the weaker cue. Although onfirst glance these results run counter to the predic-tions of Ehinger and Brockmole (2008), a configuraldominant account can explain the differences, if thesemantic information in the photographs acted toproduce configural landmarks. With the presenceof configural information, colour does not act as astrong cue. However, when there were no distinctivelandmarks (buildings, bridges, roads in photographicstimuli, or invariant distractor layouts in simplesearch tasks), colour acted as the dominant cue,making the backgrounds more distinctive (Goujonet al., 2012).

One could argue that, in these series of exper-iments, participants did not process the backgroundand so were unable to use it as a cue. Although poss-ible, this seems unlikely. Previous research hasshown that the background colour of a display wasable to cue the target’s location, leading to a robustfacilitation effect (Kunar et al., 2006; see alsoExperiments 2 and 4 here). Furthermore, it hasbeen well established that participants were able toprocess the statistics of a display early on in thevisual process. For example, Chong and Treisman(2003) showed that the mean estimates of a scenecould be accurately judged within 50 ms, whileOliva and Torralba (2006) showed that peoplecould process gists of scenes rapidly after first pres-entation (see also Chong & Treisman, 2005a,2005b; Oliva & Torralba, 2001; Potter, 1975,1976; Potter, Staub, & O’Connor, 2004; Rensink,2002; Thorpe, Fize, & Marlot, 1996, for evidenceof fast processing of scene statistics). Given thatthe backgrounds in Experiments 1–4 here provideda contextual cueing effect, that they were highlysalient, and that scene statistics were assimilatedearly on, it is highly unlikely that the backgroundcolour was not processed.

Instead, our results suggest that, compared withcolour, configuration acts as the stronger contextualcue. The fact that configural information wasweighted higher than colour makes sense if wethink about our everyday visual environment.Here physical and spatial structures are oftenmore stable across time than colour information.To borrow an example from Jiang and Song(2005), imagine walking around a new city on awarm sunny day. As you navigate about thestreets you learn the landmarks that will act ascontext to help you navigate around on futureoccasions. However, on future visits the day maybe more dark and gloomy, changing the overall per-ceptual colour of what we see (e.g., a bright greenpatch of grass on a sunny day may appear darkerand muddier on a rainier day). A visual systemthat weighted configuration over colour would beoptimal in this situation as it would be unaffectedby colour transients. Instead it would be able touse the more stable spatial layout to optimally navi-gate, respond to, and recognize the environment.



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Does this mean that colour does not play a role incontextual cueing? Previous evidence suggests other-wise. In the absence of other competitive contextualcues, colour provides strong predictive informationto help target detection (Experiments 2 and 4; seealso Kunar et al., 2006). Other work has shownthat it is not just that the colour of the backgroundsprovides predictive contexts but the colour of thesearch stimuli can act as a repeated context, too(Kunar et al., 2006). Kunar et al. (2006) had partici-pants search for a target T among distractor Ls.Crucially, from trial to trial the colour of thestimuli changed (e.g., in one trial all the stimuliwere red, in another trial all the stimuli weregreen). They found that if the colour of the stimuliwas paired with a target location (e.g., if all thestimuli were red the target would appear in positionX, if all the stimuli were green the target wouldappear in position Y) then participants showed acontextual cueing benefit, similar to the benefit pro-vided by having a coloured background (Kunar et al.,2006). Importantly, in these tasks participantsactively attended the coloured letters during thesearch task—if attention was not applied to thecoloured stimuli, no contextual cueing would havebeen found (see also Jiang & Chun, 2001). To con-clude, the role of colour in contextual cueing iscomplex. Although important in the absence of con-figural cues, when configural information is avail-able, colour learning was overshadowed and onlyacted as a weak contextual cue. Instead invariantspatial layouts elicit strong cueing effects—in linewith a configural dominant account of CC.

Original manuscript received 13 September 2012

Accepted revision received 30 October 2013

First published online 10 December 2013

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2014

a configural dominant account of contextual cueing: configural cues are stronger than colour cues

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