Visual Search Array Generator

Purpose

This skill encodes expert methodological knowledge for designing and generating visual search arrays. A competent programmer could easily generate random stimulus displays, but without domain training they would likely violate critical constraints: items too closely spaced (causing crowding), eccentricities beyond useful vision, inappropriate set sizes that cannot distinguish search types, target-distractor similarity levels that produce ceiling or floor effects, or trial ratios that distort search behavior. This skill provides the validated parameters needed to create psychophysically sound visual search experiments.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• Designing a visual search experiment (feature search, conjunction search, spatial configuration search)
• Generating stimulus arrays with specific set sizes, spacings, and feature dimensions
• Selecting target-distractor similarity levels to manipulate search efficiency
• Choosing set sizes and trial structure for measuring search slopes
• Configuring display timing, inter-trial intervals, and response windows

Do not use this skill when:

• The task is not visual search (e.g., change detection, visual working memory, attentional capture without search)