When are abrupt onsets found efficiently in complex visual search? Evidence from multielement asynchronous dynamic search.

Abstract

Previous work has found that search principles derived from simple visual search tasks do not necessarily apply to more complex search tasks. Using a Multi-element Asynchronous Dynamic (MAD) visual search task, where high numbers of stimuli could either be moving, stationary and/or changing in luminance, Kunar and Watson (2011) found that, unlike previous work, participants missed a high number of targets with search for moving items worse than for static and no benefit for finding targets that showed a luminance onset. Here we investigate why luminance onsets do not capture attention and whether luminance onsets can ever capture attention in MAD search. Experiment 1 investigated whether blinking stimuli, which abruptly offset for 100 ms before re-onsetting again -conditions known to produce attentional capture in simpler visual search tasks -captured attention in MAD search, while Experiments 2 -5 investigated whether giving participants advance knowledge and pre-exposure to the blinking cues produced efficient search for blinking targets. Experiments 6 -9 investigated whether unique luminance onsets, unique motion or unique stationary items captured attention. The results found that luminance onsets only captured attention in MAD search when they were unique, consistent with a top-down unique feature hypothesis.

The influence of attention on value integration

“…Previous research has shown that there is a limit to what we can attend to (e.g., see Marois & Ivanoff, 2005 for a review), and that, when attention is occupied, then the processing of other information in our environment is impaired (e.g. Broadbent, 1958, Pashler, 1994, Rensink, 2002, Simons & Chabris, 1999, Kunar et al 2008, Kunar & Watson, 2011, 2014, Kunar, Thomas & Watson, 2017). Therefore, if resources were consumed processing the outlier number then there may not be sufficient remaining to process the target item, leading to a detriment in target detection.…”

It is not good to talk: conversation has a fixed interference cost on attention regardless of difficulty

“…Regardless of which theory accounts for the dual-task interference effect, both the domain-general and domain-specific theories state that the magnitude of the interference effect should be influenced by conversation and/or task difficulty. For example, previous research has robustly shown that increasing task difficulty can lead to impairments in RTs and error rates (e.g., Kunar, Thomas, & Watson, 2017 ; Kunar & Watson, 2011 , 2014 ; Wolfe, Oliva, Horowitz, Butcher, & Bompas, 2002 ). That is, the more difficult a task is the more resources it will use, leaving fewer available for a second task, leading to greater dual-task impairments (e.g., Hitch & Baddeley, 1976 ; Kahneman, 1973 ; Sullivan, 1976 ).…”

The hazards of perception: evaluating a change blindness demonstration within a real-world driver education course

“…For example, a phenomenon named motion-induced blindness (Bonneh, Cooperman, & Sagi, 2001) has reportedly been used to demonstrate to aircraft pilots the importance of moving their head and eyes around when scanning the environment, preventing the pilot from focusing on one particular spot which can cause a failure to notice stationary objects. Other work has shown that people miss a large proportion of targets if they are rare or the display is complex, which has implications for real-world search tasks such as airport security/baggage screening or searching for anomalies in medical images (e.g., Kunar, Rich, & Wolfe, 2010; Kunar & Watson, 2011, 2014; Kunar, Watson, Taylor-Phillips, & Wolska, 2017; Russell & Kunar, 2012; Van Wert, Horowitz, & Wolfe, 2009; Wolfe, Horowitz, & Kenner, 2005; Wolfe et al, 2007). Accordingly, with the view that laboratory studies are useful tools to help in real-world tasks, in the present work we developed a demonstration of change blindness to be used in driver education.…”