Guidance and selection history in hybrid foraging visual search

Abstract

In Hybrid Foraging tasks, observers search for multiple instances of several types of target. Collecting all the dirty laundry and kitchenware out of a child's room would be a real-world example. How are such foraging episodes structured? A series of four experiments shows that selection of one item from the display makes it more likely that the next item will be of the same type. This pattern holds if the targets are defined by basic features like color and shape but not if they are defined by their identity (e.g., the letters p & d). Additionally, switching between target types during search is expensive in time, with longer response times between successive selections if the target type changes than if they are the same. Finally, the decision to leave a screen/patch for the next screen in these foraging tasks is imperfectly consistent with the predictions of optimal foraging theory. The results of these hybrid foraging studies cast new light on the ways in which prior selection history guides subsequent visual search in general.

The influence of selection modality, display dynamics and error feedback on patterns of human foraging

“…While there are additional quantitative techniques for establishing whether a trial contains random runs, such as the one sample runs test (Dawkins, 1971;Á. Kristjánsson et al, 2014) or random simulation (Wolfe et al, 2019), these typically provide results that correspond very well with the heuristic just described. As our goal was to characterize the overall difference in run behavior between feature and conjunction conditions, and as additional analyses with the one sample runs test yielded qualitatively identical patterns, we opted to base our analysis simply on the number of runs.…”

“…In a very elegant series of studies -which we discuss further below -Wolfe et al (2019) explore a number of factors that affect "hybrid foraging search", the term they use to describe the current foraging paradigms (Wolfe et al, 2016). Experiment 1 of Wolfe et al (2019), was specifically designed as a close replication of Kristjánsson et al (2014), with the following main modifications: i) stimuli were presented on a regular (touchscreen) monitor; ii) all items were always in motion;…”

“…Returning to the Wolfe et al (2019) paper, the authors identify two important factors that they believe help determine when foraging behavior is likely to proceed in extended runs. First, perceptual priming from the immediately preceding selection may bias the next one to the same target type (see also; Á.…”

“…Taking inspiration from the animal foraging literature (Dawkins, 1971;Heinrich, Mudge, & Deringis, 1977;Jackson & Li, 2004;Pietrewicz & Kamil, 1979;Tinbergen, 1960), a number of research groups have begun to explore tasks that involve multiple target items and/or target categories, with the aim of extending our knowledge about search in more complex scenarios (Cain, Vul, Clark, & Mitroff, 2012;Fougnie, Cormiea, Zhang, Alvarez, & Wolfe, 2015;Gilchrist, North, & Hood, 2001;Hills, Jones, & Todd, 2012;Hills, Kalff, & Wiener, 2013;Á. Kristjánsson, Jóhannesson, & Thornton, 2014;Pellicano et al, 2011;Wolfe, 2013;Wolfe, Aizenman, Boettcher, & Cain, 2016;Wolfe, Cain, & Aizenman, 2019).…”

Foraging Tempo: Human run patterns in multiple target search are constrained by the rate of successive responses.

“…Kristjánsson & Egeth, 2019;Treisman & Gelade, 1980;Wolfe, 2010;Wolfe & Horowitz, 2004 -to include situations where multiple targets from different categories must be located on each trial. Several other groups have also explored multiple target search (e.g., Cain et al, 2012;Fougnie et al, 2015;Gilchrist et al, 2001;Hills et al, 2012Hills et al, , 2013Pellicano et al, 2011;Wolfe, 2013;Wolfe et al, 2016Wolfe et al, , 2019. The common goal of such work is to better understand the relationship between vision, attention and action in complex scenarios (see Á. for a recent discussion).…”