Jessica N. Goetz¹, Mark B. Neider¹; ¹University of Central Florida

Numerous studies have suggested that the visual system relies on the rapid processing of summary scene statistics to dynamically tune selective attention mechanisms during visual search (e.g., Becker et al., 2025; Rosenholtz, 2024). We have demonstrated that primary color features are used to guide attention more than secondary color features when observers search for real-world objects defined by more than one color (Goetz & Neider, 2025a). However, we have not investigated whether these effects translate to scenes. In the current study, 27 participants were shown a 200 ms target preview on a white background followed by a search array presented against a phase-scrambled real-world scene. We used the MATCH toolbox (Goetz & Neider, 2025b) to determine the primary and secondary colors in the scenes and real-world object targets. We selected scenes that were close in color to the target’s primary color (primary scene), secondary color (secondary scene), and scenes far from the target’s primary color (control scene). The toolbox was used to create color-matching distractors to the target’s primary and secondary colors. Additionally, there were distractors that matched the target’s shape but differed from the target’s color. We predicted dynamic tuning of selective attention based on each scene such that the central guiding feature would differ depending on the specific elements of each scene. First saccade served as a proxy to measure visual selection. The results indicated that in control scenes, both colors were used to guide attention (all ps < .001), whereas colors and shape were used to guide attention in secondary scenes (all ps < .001). Critically, in primary scenes, the secondary color was used most to guide attention (all ps ≤ .007). The data suggest that search templates are malleable and sensitive to the rapid processing of scene properties, specifically the color summary statistics in a scene.