Stable individual differences in strategies within, but not between, visual search tasks

Clarke, Alasdair D. F.; Irons, Jessica; James, Warren; Leber, Andrew B.; Hunt, Amelia R.

doi:10.31234/osf.io/bqa5v

Cited by 11 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In the hunted condition, it would be necessary to keep a safe distance between the sheep and the nearest wolf and at all times, to avoid being eaten and cancelling the trial. Finally, a consistent finding in many previous studies from our group, and other labs, has been the existence of subsets of individuals who continue to forage randomly under conjunction conditions (e.g., Clarke et al, 2018;Jóhannesson et al, 2017;Á. Kristjánsson et al, 2014;Tagu & Kristjánsson, 2020; We termed these individuals "super-foragers" as they seemed immune to the increase in attentional load (Watson & Strayer, 2010).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 78%

“…While we had initially pursued the idea that the ability to switch easily during conjunction foraging reflected stable individual differences in more general cognitive abilities, such as WM or attention span, the story appears to be more complex. For example, while such links between foraging ability and cognitive measures have been found in children (Ólafsdóttir et al, 2016, 2019), this is not the case with adults (Clarke et al, 2018;Jóhannesson et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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The Predation Game: Does dividing attention affect patterns of human foraging?

Thornton¹,

Tagu²,

Zdravković³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Attention is known to play an important role in shaping the behaviour of both human and animal foragers. Here, in two experiments, we built on our previous interactive tasks to create an online foraging game for studying divided attention in human participants exposed to the (simulated) risk of predation. Participants used a “sheep” object to collect items from different target categories randomly distributed across the display. Each trial also contained “wolf” objects, whose movement was inspired by classic studies of multiple object tracking. For “hunted” participants, collision with any wolf terminated the trial, making the need to monitor and avoid the predators crucial to success. For “distracted” participants, the wolf objects did not interact with the sheep, and could effectively be ignored. In Experiment 1, we used an established Feature/Conjunction manipulation to vary the difficulty of target selection. In Experiment 2, we varied the value and the prevalence of target items to examine potential trade-offs between risk and reward. In both experiments, we found very clear differences between the foraging patterns of hunted versus distracted participants. We were also able to replicate basic foraging patterns associated with target complexity and reward, respectively. Unexpectedly, hunted participants did not show a tendency to restricting their search to a single category, the hallmark of attention limited foraging. Rather, they were more likely to select from all available categories, compared to the distracted participants. Such behaviour is consistent with the idea that risk of predation in our task modulated levels of alertness/arousal, counteracting the costs of having to both select targets and monitor for wolves. While the effects of phasic changes in alertness and arousal are well captured in standard capacity models of attention and are also central to recent attempts to explain individual differences in human performance they do not as yet play a major role in the attention models applied to either human or animal foraging.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Predation Game: Does dividing attention affect patterns of human foraging?

Thornton¹,

Tagu²,

Zdravković³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…This finding suggests that the extended run behavior found in our original work [24]which has been replicated a number of times, both by our group [50][51][52] and others [53][54][55][56]does not rely exclusively on the feature/conjunction manipulation. Rather, it implies that this manipulation interacts with other aspects of the task design and/or display characteristics to constrain foraging behavior.…”

Section: Summary and Future Directionssupporting

confidence: 75%

A serious game to explore human foraging in a 3D environment

et al. 2019

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Traditional search tasks have taught us much about vision and attention. Recently, several groups have begun to use multiple-target search to explore more complex and temporally extended "foraging" behaviour. Many of these new foraging tasks, however, maintain the simplified 2D displays and response demands associated with traditional, single-target visual search. In this respect, they may fail to capture important aspects of real-world search or foraging behaviour. In the current paper, we present a serious game for mobile platforms, developed in Unity3D, in which human participants play the role of an animal foraging for food in a simulated 3D environment. Game settings can be adjusted, so that, for example, custom target and distractor items can be uploaded, and task parameters, such as the number of target categories or target/distractor ratio are all easy to modify. We are also making the Unity3D project available, so that further modifications can also be made. We demonstrate how the app can be used to address specific research questions by conducting two human foraging experiments. Our results indicate that in this 3D environment, a standard feature/conjunction manipulation does not lead to a reduction in foraging runs, as it is known to do in simple, 2D foraging tasks.

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“…This may prove useful in terms of identifying underlying mechanisms. For example, while previous studies with children have found clear links between foraging behavior and other, more general cognitive abilities (Ólafsdóttir et al, 2016, 2019), this has not been the case with studies of adults (Clarke et al, 2018;Jóhannesson et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

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

Thornton¹,

Nguyen²,

Kristjánsson³

2020

Preprint

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Human foraging tasks are beginning to provide new insights into the roles of vision, attention and working memory during complex search, particularly with respect to individual differences. 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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Stable individual differences in strategies within, but not between, visual search tasks

Cited by 11 publications

References 24 publications

The Predation Game: Does dividing attention affect patterns of human foraging?

The Predation Game: Does dividing attention affect patterns of human foraging?

A serious game to explore human foraging in a 3D environment

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

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