Interruption in visual search: a systematic review.

Visual search, the process of trying to find a target presented among distractors, is a much-studied cognitive task. Less well-studied is the condition in which the search task is interrupted before the target is found. The consequences of such interruptions in visual search have been investigated across various disciplines, which has resulted in diverse and at times contradictory findings. The aim of this systematic review is to provide a more cohesive understanding of the effects of interruptions in visual search. For this purpose, we identified 28 studies that met our inclusion criteria. To facilitate a more organized and comprehensive analysis, we grouped the studies based on three dimensions: the search environment, the interruption aftermath, and the type of the interrupting event. While interruptions in visual search are variable and manifest differently across studies, our review provides a foundational scheme for a more cohesive understanding of the subject. This categorization serves as a starting point for exploring potential future directions, which we delineate in our conclusions.

The impact of different distractions on outdoor visual search and object memory.

We investigated whether and how different types of search distractions affect visual search behavior and target memory while participants searched in a real-world environment. They searched either undistracted (control condition), listened to a podcast (auditory distraction), counted down aloud at intervals of three while searching (executive working memory load), or were forced to stop the search on half of the trials (time pressure). In line with findings from laboratory settings, participants searched longer but made fewer errors when the target was absent than when it was present, regardless of distraction condition. Furthermore, compared to the auditory distraction condition, the executive working memory load led to higher error rates (but not longer search times). In a surprise memory test after the end of the search tasks, recognition was better for previously present targets than for absent targets. Again, this was regardless of the previous distraction condition, although significantly fewer targets were remembered by the participants in the executive working memory load condition than by those in the control condition. The findings suggest that executive working memory load, but likely not auditory distraction and time pressure affected visual search performance and target memory in a real-world environment.

Inhibition of Return in Visual Search Does Not Rely on Spatial Working Memory.

Inhibition of return (IOR) prevents the immediate reorientation to previously attended locations, such that unattended locations are prioritized. In the current study, we were interested in whether saccadic IOR is affected by the storage of visuospatial information in working memory (WM) during a visual search task. To this end, participants searched a display for a target letter once while holding no, two, or four object locations in their spatial WM. During the search, either a previously inspected or an uninspected item was probed, and the participants were instructed to immediately saccade to this probed item before resuming the search. The results showed that saccadic latencies to previously inspected items were longer than to uninspected items, indicating the presence of IOR during the search. However, this effect was observed regardless of the number of item locations held in the spatial WM. This finding suggests that saccadic IOR does not rely on visuospatial WM in visual search.

Saccadic and manual response time data on inhibition of return during and after a visual search.

In the present paper we present a dataset that provides data of two experiments in which we investigated the presence of Inhibition of Return (IOR) during and after a visual search. Participants either had to saccade (Experiment 1 and 2) or make a manual response (Experiment 2) to a probe during a visual search task (searching for a target letter among a set of distractors) or immediately after its completion. The data consist of the unprocessed raw data and one csv-file of the processed eye tracking data on eight (Experiment 1) and 18 (Experiment 2) participants, respectively. In total, we obtained 5,116 trials in Experiment 1 and 18,424 in Experiment 2. The data set is stored at the repository DOOR hosted by the University of Krems (https://door.donau-uni.ac.at/view/o:1014). Detailed information about the experiments and the interpretation of the data can be found in the paper "Post-search IOR: Searching for inhibition of return after search" (Höfler et al., 2019) [1].

Target processing in overt serial visual search involves the dorsal attention network: A fixation-based event-related fMRI study.

In serial visual search we shift attention successively from location to location in search for the target. Although such search has been investigated using fMRI, overt attention (i.e., eye movements) was usually neglected or discouraged. As a result, it is unclear what happens in the instant when our gaze falls upon a target as compared to a distractor. In the present experiment, we used a multiple target search task that required eye movements and employed an analysis based on fixations as events of interest to investigate differences between target and distractor processing. Twenty young healthy adults indicated the number of targets (0-3) among distractors in a 20-item display. Compared to distractor fixations, we found that target fixations gave rise to wide-spread activation in the dorsal attention system, as well as in the visual cortex. Targets that were found later during the search activated the left inferior frontal gyrus and the left supramarginal gyrus more strongly than those that were found earlier. Finally, areas associated with visual and verbal working memory showed increased activation with a larger number of targets in the display.

Cost of care for persons with dementia: using a discrete-time Markov chain approach with administrative and clinical data from the dementia service Centres in Austria.

BACKGROUND: There is growing evidence that the cost for dementia care will increase rapidly in the coming years. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to determine the economic impact of treating clients with dementia in outpatient Dementia Service Centres (DSCs) and simulate the cost progression with real clinical and cost data. METHODS: To estimate the cost for dementia care, real administrative and clinical data from 1341 clients of the DSCs were used to approximate the total cost of non-pharmaceutical treatment and simulate the cost progression with a discrete-time Markov chain (DTMC) model. The economic simulation model takes severity and progression of dementia into account to display the cost development over a period of up to ten years. RESULTS: Based on the administrative data, the total cost for treating these 1341 clients of the DSCs came to 67,294,910 EUR in the first year. From these costs, 74% occurred as indirect costs. Within a five-year period, these costs will increase by 7.1-fold (16.2-fold over 10 years). Further, the DTMC shows that the greatest share of the cost increase derives from the sharp increase of people with severe dementia and that the cost of severe dementia prevails the cost in later periods. CONCLUSION: The DTMC model has shown that the cost increase of dementia care is mostly driven by the indirect cost and the increase of severity of dementia within any given year. The DTMC reveals also that the cost for mild dementia will decrease steadily over the time period of the simulation, whereas the cost for severe dementia increases sharply after running the simulation for 3 years.

Data of a sub-analysis of the DEMDATA study: characteristics of Austrian and Czech nursing homes residents.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this data paper is to provide the data set of a sub-analysis of the DEMDATA study data. In the DEMDATA study, epidemiological data on the prevalence and severity of dementia, as well as functioning, behavioral problems and other health related factors in residents living in Austrian and Czech nursing homes were collected. The DEMDATA project further provides information on relatives' perception of the life Quality of residents, care team burden as well as environmental factors. Participating nursing homes were randomly drawn and stratified. Inclusion criteria for participation were that the resident was living permanently in the institution and that he/she and/or a legal representative (where relevant) had signed an informed consent. DATA DESCRIPTION: This paper provides data of cognitive, functional and behavioral assessments as well as other health related information of 1085 residents living in Austrian and Czech nursing homes. For each resident, several measurements on his or her cognitive, functional, and behavioral status are available. Also further health-related factors such as quality of life, pain, numbers of falls and hospital stays are provided.

Post-search IOR: Searching for inhibition of return after search.

Previous research has indicated that Inhibition of return (IOR) supports visual search by discouraging the re-inspection of recently inspected items during search. However, it is not clear whether IOR persists after a search is completed or whether this depends on the presence of a further search in the same display. To investigate this issue, we had participants search consecutively twice in the same display (Experiment 1). Immediately after the end of the first search and after the end of the second search we probed an item which had been recently inspected or not in the previous search. The results showed that IOR as measured by the saccadic latency to the probed items was absent after the end of each of the two successive searches. In Experiment 2, we measured both saccadic latencies and manual responses in a single-search paradigm. We found that IOR during and after the search was present for saccadic responses but absent for manual responses. This suggests that IOR during and after a visual search depends on the modality of the response and the number of required searches.

Cognitive status and use of analgesics and anxiolytics in residents of nursing homes in the Czech Republic.

BACKGROUND: The treatment of pain and treatment of anxiety are two of the most complex issues in nursing homes worldwide, mainly because of the large numbers of people with cognitive impairment who reside in this environment. AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate the administration of analgesics and anxiolytics to people living in nursing homes, taking into account cognitive status. METHODS: For this cross-sectional study, we used data from 404 residents who lived in nine randomly selected nursing homes in the Czech Republic and participated in the Czech-Austrian Long-Term Care Research Project called DEMDATA. Information about medication administration was obtained from medical records. Cognitive impairment was evaluated by the Mini-Mental State Examination, and pain was measured by the Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia. To measure anxiety, we used the Behavioral Pathology in Alzheimer's Disease Rating Scale in residents with severe-to-moderate dementia and also the standardized questionnaire EuroQol in other residents. RESULTS: In all, 68% (95% CI 62-74) of residents with pain did not receive any analgesic medication and 31% (95% CI 25-38) of residents were administered some analgesics and continued to report pain. The lowest reported occurrence of pain, as well as the lowest prevalence of analgesic administration, was in residents with moderate-to-severe dementia. We found that an alarming percentage of residents in the nursing homes were not treated sufficiently. CONCLUSION: This study indicates that treatment effects should be better monitored.

Target probability modulates fixation-related potentials in visual search.

This study investigated the influence of target probability on the neural response to target detection in free viewing visual search. Participants were asked to indicate the number of targets (one or two) among distractors in a visual search task while EEG and eye movements were co-registered. Target probability was manipulated by varying the set size of the displays between 10, 22, and 30 items. Fixation-related potentials time-locked to first target fixations revealed a pronounced P300 at the centro-parietal cortex with larger amplitudes for set sizes 22 and 30 than for set size 10. With increasing set size, more distractor fixations preceded the detection of the target, resulting in a decreased target probability and, consequently, a larger P300. For distractors, no increase of P300 amplitude with set size was observed. The findings suggest that set size specifically affects target but not distractor processing in overt serial visual search.

Cross-sectional study of prevalence of dementia, behavioural symptoms, mobility, pain and other health parameters in nursing homes in Austria and the Czech Republic: results from the DEMDATA project.

BACKGROUND: This paper provides a first comparative exploratory analysis of our findings from DEMDATA, a collaborative project between Austria and the Czech Republic. Analysed here are data from the residents and the environment assessment protocol. METHODS: In a cross sectional study design, residents from randomly drawn and stratified nursing homes were investigated using a common study protocol. RESULTS: From a total resident pool of 1666 persons, 1085 (571 in Austria, 514 in the Czech Republic) persons signed a consent form and participated in the data collection. More than 70% of residents assessed were female and the population was on average 85 years old. A discrepancy between the presence of a medical diagnosis in the charts of the residents and the results of cognitive testing was found. In Austria, 85.2%, in the Czech Republic 53.0% of residents had cognitive impairment. In Austria 80.0%, and in the Czech Republic 56.7% had behavioural problems. With respect to pain, 44.8% in Austria, and 51.5% in the Czech Republic had mild to severe pain. 78.4% of Austrian and 74.5% of the residents had problems with mobility and both populations were in danger of malnutrition. CONCLUSIONS: Most of the prevalence rates are comparable with previous studies also using direct resident assessment. Variations in prevalence rates seem to result mainly from the assessment technique (direct cognitive testing vs. medical chart review). The high prevalence rates for dementia, behavioural symptoms, pain and malnutrition indicate an immediate call for attention to further research and practice development.

Neuronal interactions in areas of spatial attention reflect avoidance of disgust, but orienting to danger.

For survival, it is necessary to attend quickly towards dangerous objects, but to turn away from something that is disgusting. We tested whether fear and disgust sounds direct spatial attention differently. Using fMRI, a sound cue (disgust, fear or neutral) was presented to the left or right ear. The cue was followed by a visual target (a small arrow) which was located on the same (valid) or opposite (invalid) side as the cue. Participants were required to decide whether the arrow pointed up- or downwards while ignoring the sound cue. Behaviorally, responses were faster for invalid compared to valid targets when cued by disgust, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for targets after fearful and neutral sound cues. During target presentation, activity in the visual cortex and IPL increased for targets invalidly cued with disgust, but for targets validly cued with fear which indicated a general modulation of activation due to attention. For the TPJ, an interaction in the opposite direction was observed, consistent with its role in detecting targets at unattended positions and in relocating attention. As a whole our results indicate that a disgusting sound directs spatial attention away from its location, in contrast to fearful and neutral sounds.

Guidance toward and away from distractors in repeated visual search.

When searching for two targets consecutively in the same display, participants use memory of recently fixated distractors that become the target in the second search to find that target more quickly. Here we ask whether participants are also using memory for fixated distractors that do not become the target. In Experiment 1 we show that search is faster overall in the second search regardless of whether or not the second search target was fixated in the first search. We replicate this effect in Experiment 2 for different display sizes and further show that the effect is a result of the prioritization of locations that are more likely to contain the target. This suggests that representations of the fixated distractor items are retained across the two searches and that these representations can be used flexibly to optimize search performance. Furthermore, this suggests that the short-term memory processes that support search across consecutive searches not only facilitate guidance toward the target but also allow distractors to be excluded from the search process.

Searching the same display twice: Properties of short-term memory in repeated search.

Consecutive search for different targets in the same display is supported by a short-term memory mechanism: Distractors that have recently been inspected in the first search are found more quickly in the second search when they become the target (Exp. 1). Here, we investigated the properties of this memory process. We found that this recency advantage is robust to a delay between the two searches (Exp. 2) and that it is only slightly disrupted by an interference task between the two searches (Exp. 3). Introducing a concurrent secondary task (Exp. 4) showed that the memory representations formed in the first search are based on identity as well as location information. Together, these findings show that the short-term memory that supports repeated visual search stores a complex combination of item identity and location that is robust to disruption by either time or interference.

Inhibition of return functions within but not across searches.

Inhibition of return (IOR) facilitates visual search by discouraging the reinspection of recently processed items. We investigated whether IOR operates across two consecutive searches of the same display for different targets. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that IOR is present within each of the two searches. In Experiment 2, we found no evidence for IOR across searches. In Experiment 3, we showed that IOR is present across the two searches when the first search is interrupted, suggesting that the completion of the search is what causes the resetting of IOR. We concluded that IOR is a partially flexible process that can be reset when the task completes, but not necessarily when it changes. When resetting occurs, this flexibility ensures that the inhibition of previously visited locations does not interfere with the new search.