Abstract: The context effect had been obtained in many visual search and object detection studies. Three models were corresponded to the explanation of the context effect: Functional isolation model, interactive model and contextual guidance model. In the interactive model, two theories, scheme activated theory and visual representation, were developed to explain interactive processing. As far as the materials is concerned, context effect showed more significant in real-world scenes than in man-made scenes, as real-world scene could provide more information and the reference for position, and the regions played role to these two kinds of scene were different. In addition, physiological studies of scene perception and contextual effect in scenes were introduced and summarized. Further studies were also suggested in this article.

Key words: objects identification, contextual effect, scene