Adding context can speed search via emergent configural features

Correct: B — Can speed target detection by creating an emergent feature absent from the simpler base display

Pomerantz, Sager & Stoever (1977) compared discrimination of a single oblique line against discrimination of the same line plus an identical context line that, together, formed an arrow versus a triangle. Counterintuitively, the more complex display was discriminated faster. The added context creates an emergent feature — closure, symmetry, or a salient angle — that the visual system uses preferentially. This 'configural superiority effect' is now a textbook demonstration that perception is not a strict bottom-up summation of parts: wholes can be more salient and easier to classify than their constituents, anticipating modern Gestalt-aligned views of grouping and emergent structure in vision.