Adding depth to overlapping displays can improve visual search performance.

Godwin, H. J.; Menneer, Tamaryn; Liversedge, Simon Paul; Cave, Kyle R.; Holliman, Nicolas S.; Donnelly, Nick

doi:10.1037/xhp0000353

Cited by 13 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Heavy-tailed, scale-free distributions are seen in both animal and human foraging (Hills, Todd, & Jones, 2015;Rhodes & Turvey, 2007;Viswanathan, et al, 1999), again reinforcing the notion that, if this type of distribution is seen in memory retrieval, the landscape of memory may mirror that of the physical realm. The link between memory and the physical world may also explain performance gains when tasks are ecologically valid; when laboratory tasks match the physical world, less translation is needed to access physical world-like memory and actions (Godwin, et al, 2017;van der Ham, Faber, Venselaar, van Kreveld, & Loffler, 2015;Moreau & Conway, 2014). The current study supports the notion that human memory foraging is characterized by a heavy-tailed distribution, as in Rhodes and Turvey (2007), and ties response intervals to distance traveled.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 75%

The trajectory of thought: Heavy-tailed distributions in memory foraging promote efficiency

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Free-recall tasks suggest human memory foraging may follow a heavy-tailed distribution, such as a Lévy flight, patch foraging, or area-restricted searchwalk procedures that are common in other activities of cognitive agents, such as food foraging in both animals and humans. To date, research merely equates memory foraging with hunting in the physical world based on similarities in statistical structure. The current work supports that memory foraging follows a heavy-tailed distribution by using categories with quantitative distances between each item: countries, which have physical distances, and animals, from which cognitive distances can be derived using a multidimensional scaling (MDS) procedure. Likewise, inter-item lag times follow a heavy-tailed distribution. The current work also demonstrates that inter-item distances and times are positively correlated, suggesting the organization of items in memory may be akin to the organization of a physical landscape. Finally, both studies show that participants' original, heavy-tailed lists of countries and animal names produce shorter overall distances traveled than random selection. Human memory foraging follows the same pattern as foraging in the natural worldperhaps because exposure to ecological settings informs our inner cognitive experienceleading to a processing and retrieval time benefit.

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 75%

The trajectory of thought: Heavy-tailed distributions in memory foraging promote efficiency

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Furthermore, all except extremely dense items have some degree of transparency, meaning that the appearance of almost every item will be influenced by spatially overlapping items, including the bag or container. Not only can overlap (occlusion) make it more difficult to segment images and identify object boundaries, but it also influences the colour of overlapping objects, which is typically based on averages of the relevant item properties (Godwin et al, 2017). These complexities and the lack of reliable cues that might be available in other visual scenes mean that search guidance in baggage X-rays is likely extremely limited (Vickery et al, 2005;J.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved X-ray baggage screening sensitivity with ‘targetless’ search training

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When searching for a known target, mental representations of target features, or templates, guide attention towards matching objects and facilitate recognition. When only distractor features are known, distractor templates allow irrelevant objects to be recognised and attention to be shifted away. This is particularly true in X-ray baggage search, a challenging real-world visual search task with implications for public safety, where targets may be unknown, difficult to predict and concealed by an adversary, but distractors are typically benign and easier to identify. In the present study, we draw on basic principles of distractor suppression and rejection to investigate a counterintuitive ‘targetless’ approach to training baggage search. In a simulated X-ray baggage search task, we observed significant benefits to target detection sensitivity (d′) for targetless relative to target-based training, but no effects of performance-contingent rewards or the inclusion of superordinate semantic categories during training. The benefits of targetless search training were most apparent for stimuli involving less spatial overlap (occlusion), which likely represents the difficulty and greater individual variation involved in searching more visually complex images. Together, these results demonstrate the effectiveness of a counterintuitive targetless approach to training target detection in X-ray baggage search, based on basic principles of distractor suppression and rejection, with potential for use as a real-world training tool.

show abstract

“…It is believed that this is because even though a standard search study might present a target in 50% of trials, the probability that each individual object will be the target is quite small. For example, if a target is presented in 50% of trials, and there are 16 objects presented per trial, then, on average, the probability that any given object will be the target is 1/(16*2) = 0.03 (Godwin et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: A Walkthrough Of the Research Cycle Of A Visual Search And Eye-movement Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 10 It is worth noting that the distance-based approach can fail when overlapping or asymmetric objects are used in the search displays, because their center locations can be skewed by their asymmetric shape, as was the case in a study conducted by Godwin et al ( 2017 ). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Avoiding potential pitfalls in visual search and eye-movement experiments: A tutorial review

Godwin

Hout

Alexdóttir

et al. 2021

Atten Percept Psychophys

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Examining eye-movement behavior during visual search is an increasingly popular approach for gaining insights into the moment-to-moment processing that takes place when we look for targets in our environment. In this tutorial review, we describe a set of pitfalls and considerations that are important for researchers – both experienced and new to the field – when engaging in eye-movement and visual search experiments. We walk the reader through the research cycle of a visual search and eye-movement experiment, from choosing the right predictions, through to data collection, reporting of methodology, analytic approaches, the different dependent variables to analyze, and drawing conclusions from patterns of results. Overall, our hope is that this review can serve as a guide, a talking point, a reflection on the practices and potential problems with the current literature on this topic, and ultimately a first step towards standardizing research practices in the field.

show abstract

Adding depth to overlapping displays can improve visual search performance.

Cited by 13 publications

References 51 publications

The trajectory of thought: Heavy-tailed distributions in memory foraging promote efficiency

The trajectory of thought: Heavy-tailed distributions in memory foraging promote efficiency

Improved X-ray baggage screening sensitivity with ‘targetless’ search training

Avoiding potential pitfalls in visual search and eye-movement experiments: A tutorial review

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About