Treisman, A. & Sato, S. Conjunction search revisited.
In the high-attention task, similar to a conjunction search, the target events were defined by both color and size.
Lower-fit and higher-fit children performed a visual search task that included feature search and conjunction search conditions.
The conjunction search condition required greater top-down control to reduce interference from task-irrelevant distractors that shared a basic feature with the target.
The more lateral region of BA7 previously reported by other groups was engaged to a similar degree by both spatial and temporal versions of the conjunction search task.
The target appeared among varying numbers of distractors that resembled another familiar television character and was either a uniquely colored shape (the feature search task) or a unique color-shape combination (the conjunction search task).
There are two distinct modes: a feature search where red Landolt squares were present in addition to the single green target; and a conjunction search where distractor boxes were green and red, with all green distractor boxes having gaps on either side, whereas red distractor boxes had gaps on the top and bottom similar to the green target box.
Madden, DJ. "Frontoparietal activation during visual conjunction search: Effects of bottom-up guidance and adult age". 15th Cognitive Aging Conference.
Nevertheless, children's conjunction search performance improves significantly when they are aged 6 7 years (Hommel, Li, & Li, 2004; Lobaugh, Cole, & Rovet, 1998; Merrill & Lookadoo, 2004), perhaps reflecting that top-down attentional control becomes more efficient.
Woods et al. (2013) found that as organizational abilities in the visual search of children aged 2 18 years improved, so did conjunction search performance, probably reflecting the maturation of executive organizational processes.
Young children are also more susceptible to interference by distractors in conjunction search than adults, which has been attributed to the development of feature binding and voluntary attention shifts (Trick & Enns, 1998).
