Editorial: visual search and selective attention

Visual search is one of the most successful paradigms employed in research on selective attention. In the prototypical search task, observers are presented with displays containing variable numbers of items one of which, the target, may differ from the other items, the distractors. Observers indicate, as rapidly and as accurately as possible, whether or not a target objects is present in the display. One reason for the method’s amazing success is its versatility: there appears to be no limit to the possible ways in which search tasks can be adapted to investigate the various facets of selective visual processing