Searching for the right word: Hybrid visual and memory search for words

Abstract

In “Hybrid Search” (Wolfe 2012) observers search through visual space for any of multiple targets held in memory. With photorealistic objects as stimuli, response times (RTs) increase linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with memory set size even when over 100 items are committed to memory. It is well established that pictures of objects are particularly easy to memorize (Brady, Konkle, Alvarez, & Olivia, 2008). Would hybrid search performance be similar if the targets were words or phrases where word order can be important and where the processes of memorization might be different? In Experiment One, observers memorized 2, 4, 8, or 16 words in 4 different blocks. After passing a memory test, confirming memorization of the list, observers searched for these words in visual displays containing 2 to 16 words. Replicating Wolfe (2012), RTs increased linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the length of the word list. The word lists of Experiment One were random. In Experiment Two, words were drawn from phrases that observers reported knowing by heart (E.G. “London Bridge is falling down”). Observers were asked to provide four phrases ranging in length from 2 words to a phrase of no less than 20 words (range 21–86). Words longer than 2 characters from the phrase constituted the target list. Distractor words were matched for length and frequency. Even with these strongly ordered lists, results again replicated the curvilinear function of memory set size seen in hybrid search. One might expect serial position effects; perhaps reducing RTs for the first (primacy) and/or last (recency) members of a list (Atkinson & Shiffrin 1968; Murdock, 1962). Surprisingly we showed no reliable effects of word order. Thus, in “London Bridge is falling down”, “London” and “down” are found no faster than “falling”.

How did I miss that? Developing mixed hybrid visual search as a ‘model system’ for incidental finding errors in radiology

“…The logarithmic relationship between memory set size and hybrid search RT holds for large memory set sizes of 100 (Wolfe, 2012a ) or even 500 specific items (Wolfe, Boettcher, Josephs, Cunningham, & Drew, 2015 ) and appears to be based on the recognition of items as targets rather than a more basic feeling of ‘familiarity’ (Wolfe, Boettcher, Josephs, Cunningham, & Drew, 2015 ). A similar pattern of results is seen with other types of targets such as words (Boettcher & Wolfe, 2015 ).…”

Scene grammar shapes the way we interact with objects, strengthens memories, and speeds search

“…Such power laws have been found in a variety of scientific fields 50 , yet explaining them is not trivial. A recent proposal states that human memory might be responsible for a power law for word frequencies 37 , as memory decay 51 , 52 and search through memory for a particular item 53 , 54 can be described by power laws. In light of this view, it could be argued that object pairings in the consistent condition follow “near-Zipfian” distributions more closely, as they are pooled from a life-time of learning.…”

Hybrid foraging search: Searching for multiple instances of multiple types of target

“…This pattern of linear RT × visual set size functions and log-linear RT × memory set size functions is seen for sets of unique objects (Wolfe, 2012), categories of objects (e.g., are there any animals, coins, plants, or flags?) (Cunningham & Wolfe, 2014), and lists of words (Boettcher & Wolfe, 2015). …”