Evidence for a Positive Relationship between Working-Memory Capacity and Detection of Low-Prevalence Targets in Visual Search

Schwark, Jeremy; Sandry, Joshua; Dolgov, Igor

doi:10.1068/p7386

Cited by 21 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…As a result, observers are more likely to make target-absent responses. The link between criteria shifts and shorter search times is predicted by the multiple-decision model and has been observed in previous research (Rich et al, 2008;Schwark, Sandry, & Dolgov, 2013;Wolfe et al, 2005Wolfe et al, , 2007Wolfe & Van Wert, 2010).…”

Section: Low Prevalence Effectmentioning

confidence: 79%

Prevalence-based decisions undermine visual search

et al. 2013

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Section: Low Prevalence Effectmentioning

confidence: 79%

Prevalence-based decisions undermine visual search

et al. 2013

Self Cite

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“…Do these cognitive challenges exacerbate the prevalence effect, or change how it manifests? Schwark, Sandry, and Dolgov () reported correlations between operation span, a measure of working memory capacity (Redick & Engle, ), and search performance at low prevalence. This is a preliminary result in a small group of participants, but it seems plausible that the availability of cognitive resources would modulate how observers respond to prevalence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They did not, however, observe premature search termination. In conventional visual search, keeping track of which parts of the display have already been searched is limited by working memory capacity, so the observer has trouble detecting when the search termination subprocess has prematurely announced that the display has already been exhaustively searched (Schwark, Sandry, & Dolgov, ). However, the unpacking task, by its nature, allows the observer to easily separate out searched from unsearched items, by spatially separating them.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence in Visual Search: From the Clinic to the Lab and Back Again

Horowitz¹

2017

Jpn Psychol Res

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One of the most important applications of visual search is in the interpretation of medical images. Like many applications of visual search, medical image interpretation is typically characterized as a low "prevalence" context, meaning that targets are relatively rare. Breast cancer screening, for example, has a prevalence of around 0.5%. In this review, I present a survey of research on the effects of prevalence on visual search from both the medical image perception and basic psychological science perspectives. In order to provide some quantitative rigor, I include a meta-analysis of the effects of low prevalence on visual search performance. I synthesize findings from both fields, and identify both the practical suggestions for clinical practice and theoretical insights for cognitive psychologists.

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“…When participants were led to believe that they were committing many misses, they shifted their response criteria and began committing more false alarms. In both studies, when participants could not adequately rely on perception, they relied instead on memory for prior search outcomes (see also Schwark, Sandry, & Dolgov, 2013). …”

Section: What Causes the Lpe?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Failures of perception in the low-prevalence effect: Evidence from active and passive visual search.

Hout¹,

Walenchok²,

Goldinger³

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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In visual search, rare targets are missed disproportionately often. This low-prevalence effect (LPE) is a robust problem with demonstrable societal consequences. What is the source of the LPE? Is it a perceptual bias against rare targets or a later process, such as premature search termination or motor response errors? In 4 experiments, we examined the LPE using standard visual search (with eye tracking) and 2 variants of rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) in which observers made present/absent decisions after sequences ended. In all experiments, observers looked for 2 target categories (teddy bear and butterfly) simultaneously. To minimize simple motor errors, caused by repetitive absent responses, we held overall target prevalence at 50%, with 1 low-prevalence and 1 high-prevalence target type. Across conditions, observers either searched for targets among other real-world objects or searched for specific bears or butterflies among within-category distractors. We report 4 main results: (a) In standard search, high-prevalence targets were found more quickly and accurately than low-prevalence targets. (b) The LPE persisted in RSVP search, even though observers never terminated search on their own. (c) Eye-tracking analyses showed that high-prevalence targets elicited better attentional guidance and faster perceptual decisions. And (d) even when observers looked directly at low-prevalence targets, they often (12%–34% of trials) failed to detect them. These results strongly argue that low-prevalence misses represent failures of perception when early search termination or motor errors are controlled.

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Evidence for a Positive Relationship between Working-Memory Capacity and Detection of Low-Prevalence Targets in Visual Search

Cited by 21 publications

References 7 publications

Prevalence-based decisions undermine visual search

Prevalence-based decisions undermine visual search

Prevalence in Visual Search: From the Clinic to the Lab and Back Again

Failures of perception in the low-prevalence effect: Evidence from active and passive visual search.

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