Searchlight Hypothesis

Synonyms

Feature integration theory; Spotlight hypothesis

Definition

The phenomena of attentional selection of one visual area at a time within a greater visual space for the purpose of identifying a target among distractors. The analogy is to a searchlight illuminating an area at dusk such that the overall landscape is not entirely dark but that the area within the searchlight is intensified.

Current Knowledge

The searchlight hypothesis coined by Crick (1984) is an extension of the feature integration theory of Treisman (1982) and her colleagues that suggests that attention selects one area at a time within a “master map” of locations. The theory was motivated by studies documenting different detection rates for visual targets presented in a distractor array dissimilar from the target. For example, a black “A” presented within a randomly arranged set of green “X”s, and brown “T”s will “pop out” at the viewer. In contrast, a green “T” among the same distractor set will take much more...