Examining the Role of Depth Information in Contextual Cuing Using a Virtual Reality Visual Search Task

Two experiments examined the role that depth plays in the formation of associations during contextual cuing of visual search. Current associative models make predictions about the spatial constraints placed on learning within two-dimensional procedures, but there exists very little evidence of how these predictions translate to three-dimensional space. A virtual reality procedure was used to project the stimuli in three dimensions. Experiment 1 established a contextual cuing effect using this procedure, while Experiment 2 examined whether the relative distance between repeated distractors and the target or the position of the distractors relative to the observer modulated contextual cuing. It was found that the contextual cuing effect was consistent across these different conditions. As a result, there was no evidence to suggest that depth information forms a significant part of the representations that form during contextual cuing. These data are therefore broadly consistent with the mechanisms of current associative models of contextual cuing. Public Significance Statement This study provides a test of the way in which visual scenes are processed and learned about across three-dimensional space. Current models of this behavior only consider learning in two-dimensional space. The current work therefore provides important insights into how depth information contributes to the memory representations of familiar scenes.