With feature search, if the sought item is different from all the distracters in some fundamental way - your friend in a red coat, in a crowd of dark-suited businesspeople - the search is easy and the target of the search immediately "pops out."

Johns Hopkins University

Attention, in addition to being used to focus attention on certain stimuli, is used to systematically scan the world, or order to find some specific item in a sea of distracters.

Using Attention to Search for Objects

Breedlove, S. & Watson, N. (2017). Behavioral neuroscience, eighth edition. Oxford University Press.

Behavioral Neuroscience 8th Edition

Feature Search

Conjunction search involves searching for an item on the basis of two or more features (ie. size and color) that together distinguish the target from distracters that may share some of the same attributes. "Where's Waldo" is a good example before you are searching for a 1. boy 2. specific outfit.

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