The popout in some conjunction searches is due to perceptual grouping

THE target in a visual search task usually pops out if it can be distinguished from its background on the basis of only one visual feature but not if the target represents a conjunction of two or more features. However, several recent reports suggest that in certain cases, search targets defined by a conjunction of two features also pop out. We have reinvestigated three pairs of such features to determine whether the popout in these cases can be attributed to perceptual grouping. We find that in all three cases, popout no longer occurs when perceptual grouping is degraded, suggesting that the popout is the result of perceptual grouping and not of novel mechanism/s of conjunction search.