Attentional capabilities can also be studied in a more
direct manner. One way is to investigate performance in
visual discrimination tasks The goal of such studies is to see
how visual distractors influence the ability to identify
a target from the background. Studies capitalize on the
need to forage for cryptic prey or detect predators from
a complex background. suggested
that attention is focused serially towards different
features of the target and then integrated into a unified
percept Such serial
examination is required in visual searching whereby the desired target is selected
from the surrounding distractors A study
on visual searching tests attention by distracting the
animal from identifying the target quickly and accurately
In addition, possessing a
‘search image’ and employing
‘area restricted searches’ can further help identif