Active visual search in naturalistic environments reflects individual differences in classic visual search performance.
Sci Rep
; 13(1): 631, 2023 01 12.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36635491
ABSTRACT
Visual search is a ubiquitous activity in real-world environments. Yet, traditionally, visual search is investigated in tightly controlled paradigms, where head-restricted participants locate a minimalistic target in a cluttered array that is presented on a computer screen. Do traditional visual search tasks predict performance in naturalistic settings, where participants actively explore complex, real-world scenes? Here, we leverage advances in virtual reality technology to test the degree to which classic and naturalistic search are limited by a common factor, set size, and the degree to which individual differences in classic search behavior predict naturalistic search behavior in a large sample of individuals (N = 75). In a naturalistic search task, participants looked for an object within their environment via a combination of head-turns and eye-movements using a head-mounted display. Then, in a classic search task, participants searched for a target within a simple array of colored letters using only eye-movements. In each task, we found that participants' search performance was impacted by increases in set size-the number of items in the visual display. Critically, we observed that participants' efficiency in classic search tasks-the degree to which set size slowed performance-indeed predicted efficiency in real-world scenes. These results demonstrate that classic, computer-based visual search tasks are excellent models of active, real-world search behavior.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Atenção
/
Realidade Virtual
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article