Effects of targets embedded within words in a visual search task

Visual search performance can be negatively affected when both targets and distracters share a dimension relevant to the task. This study examined if visual search performance would be influenced by distracters that affect a dimension irrelevant from the task. In Experiment 1 within the letter string of a letter search task, target letters were embedded within a word. Experiment 2 compared targets embedded in words to targets embedded in nonwords. Experiment 3 compared targets embedded in words to a condition in which a word was present in a letter string, but the target letter, although in the letter string, was not embedded within the word. The results showed that visual search performance was negatively affected when a target appeared within a high frequency word. These results suggest that the interaction and effectiveness of distracters is not merely dependent upon common features of the target and distracters, but can be affected by word frequency (a dimension not related to the task demands).