Target templates specify visual, not semantic, features to guide search: A marked asymmetry between seeking and ignoring

Top-down search templates specify targets’ properties, either to guide attention toward the target or, independently, to accelerate the recognition of individual search items. Some previous studies have concluded that target templates can specify semantic categories to guide attention, though dissociating the effects of semantic versus visual features has proven difficult. In the present experiments, we examined the roles of target templates in search performance, by measuring the “two-template costs” incurred when observers did not know which of two types of targets would be presented. For target templates, these costs only varied with set size when a template could specify a target’s features. Any semantic influences did not affect the guidance of attention, only the recognition of individual items. In contrast, templates for rejection—specifying the properties of irrelevant nontargets—do appear to specify semantic properties to guide attention away from those items, without affecting recognition. These qualitative differences between the two types of templates suggest that the processes of seeking and ignoring are fundamentally different.