When do I Quit? The Search Termination Problem in Visual Search

Does Expectation of Abnormality Affect the Search Pattern of Radiologists When Looking for Pulmonary Nodules?

“…This corresponds with previous research by Wolfe et al (2013) that the prior probability of target presence affects search duration [30]. Interestingly, there was no significant difference in search times between the unknown and high abnormality expectations implying that absence of clinical information encourages the radiologist to be equally more cautious in his approach to diagnosis as when viewing images containing a possible malignancy.…”

“…Such information may direct search patterns to expected areas of pathology. If no pathology is seen, there might be an inclination for radiologists to terminate their search too early [33]. Alternatively, if an abnormality is present, further examination might not be undertaken leading to the Bsatisfaction of search^phenome-non [34].…”

Eye-Tracking in the Study of Visual Expertise: Methodology and Approaches in Medicine

“…This effect is attributed to an unconscious decision rule that is changing (Wolfe & Van Wert, 2010). Observers also become faster to declare themselves to be finished with an image under low-prevalence conditions, but forcing them to slow down does not make observers less likely to reject low-prevalence targets (Wolfe, 2012b). Importantly, found the same effect to be true for both experts and novices.…”

“…In this visual task, search is required because everything in the visual field cannot be identified and processed simultaneously. Object recognition is limited to one, or a small number of objects at one time (Wolfe, 2012b;Wolfe et al, 2015). Attention may appear random, but is often guided by multiple cognitive mechanisms.…”

LIP activity in the interstimulus interval of a change detection task biases the behavioral response

“…This would mean that the choice threshold could be set fairly low and would be reached quickly on most correct change trials. If a choice threshold was not hit within a short time, set perhaps by a quitting threshold (Wolfe 2012;Wolfe and Van Wert 2010), the animal would default to not making a saccade. Because the decision was made rapidly, we were unable to identify any differences in accumulation rate when we attempted to smooth the data (as in Roitman and Shadlen 2002).…”