Abstract: Car interface icons need to be designed for efficient and safe interaction in complex driving environments. Aiming at the visual search problem of icons in an environment with limited cognitive resources, the effects of the visual complexity and spatial frequency of the car interface icons on the efficiency of visual search was investigated through a set of dual-task rapid presentation sequence experiments. In the experiment, target 1 is set as a vigilance task to limit the number of cognitive resources; target 2 is set as a distraction task to reflect attention needs. The results show that the visual search efficiency is significantly interfered by visual complexity and spatial frequency, the recognition accuracy rate of low-complexity, and high-spatial frequency car interface icons is higher and the response time is shorter. The interaction effect between visual complexity and spatial frequency is very significant. This study shows that the visual complexity of car interface icons determines the visual processing mechanism of the subjects, and the icons tend to be processed as a whole when they are simple; high-spatial frequency information is the key dimension of car interface icon recognition, and the recognition of more complex icons requires more participation of high spatial frequency information; low-spatial frequency information is a factor affecting the familiarity of car interface icons. The results of this paper provide an important ergonomic basis for the icon design of the automotive car interface.