Shape representation modulating the effect of motion on visual search performance

The effect of motion on visual search has been extensively investigated, but that of uniform linear motion of display on search performance for tasks with different target–distractor shape representations has been rarely explored. The present study conducted three visual search experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants finished two search tasks that differed in target–distractor shape representations under static and dynamic conditions. Two tasks with clear and blurred stimuli were performed in Experiment 3. The experiments revealed that target–distractor shape representation modulated the effect of motion on visual search performance. For tasks with low target–distractor shape similarity, motion negatively affected search performance, which was consistent with previous studies. However, for tasks with high target–distractor shape similarity, if the target differed from distractors in that a gap with a linear contour was added to the target, and the corresponding part of distractors had a curved contour, motion positively influenced search performance. Motion blur contributed to the performance enhancement under dynamic conditions. The findings are useful for understanding the influence of target–distractor shape representation on dynamic visual search performance when display had uniform linear motion.