Visual conspicuity determines human target acquisition performance

A simple and efficient psychophysical procedure is presented to quantify the visual conspicuity of a target in a complex (natural) scene. Measurements can easily and quickly be performed in the field or in complex environments. Only a few observers (typically two to three) are needed to achieve sufficient accuracy. We show that this conspicuity measure predicts human visual search performance in realistic and military relevant complex scenarios. Also, conspicuity measured on photographic slides agrees with conspicuity measured in the field, which implies that the new conspicuity measure can be used in combination with photosimulation studies to optimize and evaluate the visual distinctness of displayed information.