Evolutionary Relevance Facilitates Visual Information Processing

• Published in: Evolutionary psychology Vol. 11; no. 5; pp. 1011 - 1026
• Main Authors: Jackson, Russell E., Calvillo, Dustin P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-12-2013; SAGE Publishing
• Subjects: Analysis of Variance; Appetitive Behavior - physiology; Attention - physiology; Biological Evolution; Confidence Intervals; Humans; Original; Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology; Perceptual Masking - physiology; Photic Stimulation; Reaction Time - physiology; Visual Perception - physiology; perceptual load; animacy; evolution; categorization; visual search
• ISSN: 1474-7049; 1474-7049
• DOI: 10.1177/147470491301100506

Visual search of the environment is a fundamental human behavior that perceptual load affects powerfully. Previously investigated means for overcoming the inhibitions of high perceptual load, however, generalize poorly to real-world human behavior. We hypothesized that humans would process evolutionarily relevant stimuli more efficiently than evolutionarily novel stimuli, and evolutionary relevance would mitigate the repercussions of high perceptual load during visual search. Animacy is a significant component to evolutionary relevance of visual stimuli because perceiving animate entities is time-sensitive in ways that pose significant evolutionary consequences. Participants completing a visual search task located evolutionarily relevant and animate objects fastest and with the least impact of high perceptual load. Evolutionarily novel and inanimate objects were located slowest and with the highest impact of perceptual load. Evolutionary relevance may importantly affect everyday visual information processing.