Visual Foraging Tasks Provide New Insights into the Orienting of Visual Attention: Methodological Considerations

Kristjánsson, Árni; Ólafsdóttir, Inga María; Kristjánsson, Tómas

doi:10.1007/7657_2019_21

Cited by 19 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…In the present study we observed highly informative differences in foraging behavior in feature conditions, in which stimuli differed along a single dimension. Earlier research regarded foraging for targets defined by a single feature as highly flexible with negligible switch costs (e.g., T. Kristjánsson et al, 2019). While our findings confirm this for well-separated target and nontarget features, they also show that under less favorable conditions switching is costly and reduced to levels typical for more complex targets (Á.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

How feature context alters attentional template switching.

Tünnermann¹,

Chelazzi²,

Schubö³

2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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In real-world tasks visual attention is rarely aimed at a single object. Humans rather "forage" the visual scene for information, dynamically switching attentional templates. Several visual search studies have found that observers often use suboptimal attentional control strategies, possibly to avoid effort. Here, we investigated with a foraging paradigm if observers' reluctance to switch between attentional templates increases with template specificity. To that end, we manipulated the feature context of displays in which participants "foraged" moving stimuli on a tablet-PC. Experiment 1 (N = 35) revealed a decline in switching tendency and foraging efficiency with increasing feature-space distance between target alternatives.Experiment 2 (N = 36) found even lower flexibility with distractor color close to, and strongest impairments with distractor color in between target colors. Our results demonstrate that visual information sampling is most flexible when broad (instead of very specific) templates and relational search strategies are possible (e.g., attending to "redder" objects), with implications for both attention research and applications, especially in visual-foraging-like tasks, such as baggage screening or medical image assessment.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

How feature context alters attentional template switching.

Tünnermann¹,

Chelazzi²,

Schubö³

2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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“…Our results might, therefore, lead to the updating of the theories of visual attention and visual exploration that have been based on results from traditional single-target visual search tasks (see, for example, Á. Kristjánsson et al, 2019). Critically, we showed that these traditional tasks only consider the last target selection in a trial, but do not reflect overall search behaviour (see also T. Kristjánsson et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

Dynamics of attentional and oculomotor orienting in visual foraging tasks

Tagu

Kristjánsson

2020

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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A vast amount of research has been carried out to understand how humans visually search for targets in their environment. However, this research has typically involved search for one unique target among several distractors. Although this line of research has yielded important insights into the basic characteristics of how humans explore their visual environment, this may not be a very realistic model for everyday visual orientation. Recently, researchers have used multi-target displays to assess orienting in the visual field. Eye movements in such tasks are, however, less well understood. Here, we investigated oculomotor dynamics during four visual foraging tasks differing in target crypticity (feature-based foraging vs. conjunction-based foraging) and the effector type being used for target selection (mouse foraging vs. gaze foraging). Our results show that both target crypticity and effector type affect foraging strategies. These changes are reflected in oculomotor dynamics, feature foraging being associated with focal exploration (long fixations and short-amplitude saccades), and conjunction foraging with ambient exploration (short fixations and high-amplitude saccades). These results provide important new information for existing accounts of visual attention and oculomotor control and emphasise the usefulness of foraging tasks for a better understanding of how humans orient in the visual environment.

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“…The common goal of such work is to better understand the relationship between vision, attention, and action in complex scenarios (see Á. Kristjánsson et al, 2019, for a recent discussion).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Thornton

Nguyen

Kristjánsson

2020

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Human foraging tasks are beginning to provide new insights into the roles of vision, attention and working memory during complex, multiple-target search. Here, we test the idea that “foraging tempo” — the rate of successive target selections — helps determine patterns of behaviour in these tasks. Previously, we established that the majority of target selections during unconstrained foraging happen at regular, rapid intervals, forming the “cruise phase” of a foraging trial. Furthermore, we noted that when the temporal interval between cruise phase responses was longer, the tendency to switch between target categories increased. To directly explore this relationship, we modified our standard iPad foraging task so that observers had to synchronize each response with an auditory metronome signal. Across trials, we increased the tempo and examined how this changed patterns of foraging when targets were defined either by a single feature or by a conjunction of features. The results were very clear. Increasing tempo systematically decreased the tendency for participants to switch between target categories. While this was true for both feature and conjunction trials, there was also evidence that time constraints and target complexity interacted. As in our previous work, we also observed clear individual differences in how participants responded to changes in task difficulty. Overall, our results show that foraging tempo does influence the way participants respond, and we suggest this parameter may prove be useful in further explorations of group and individual strategies during multiple target search.

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Visual Foraging Tasks Provide New Insights into the Orienting of Visual Attention: Methodological Considerations

Cited by 19 publications

References 83 publications

How feature context alters attentional template switching.

How feature context alters attentional template switching.

Dynamics of attentional and oculomotor orienting in visual foraging tasks

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

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