scholarly journals Psychophysics in a Web browser? Comparing response times collected with JavaScript and Psychophysics Toolbox in a visual search task

2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua R. de Leeuw ◽  
Benjamin A. Motz
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Web Browser ◽  
Psychophysics Toolbox

When visual search target is rare: overweighting or under weighting the probability?

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 1520-1524
Author(s):  
Hanshu Zhang ◽  
Joseph W. Houpt
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Threshold Model ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Target Presence ◽  
Model Assumption ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
Low Prevalence

The prevalence of items in visual search may have substantial performance consequences. In laboratory visual search tasks in which the target is rare, viewers are likely to miss the target. A dual-threshold model proposed by Wolfe and Van Wert (2010) assumes that in the low prevalence condition, viewers shift their criteria resulting in more miss errors. However, from the prospective of prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), decision makers tend to overweight small probability. To explore how viewers subjectively weight the probability in the low prevalence visual search task, we compared viewers’ criteria with the optimal criteria by presenting different probability descriptions for a fixed prevalence rate. The data from this experiment indicated that target presence had an effect on viewers’ accuracy and response times but not probability descriptions. Viewers’ criteria under different probability descriptions were higher than optimal. These results are in accordance with the dual-threshold model assumption that viewers respond “target absent” more frequently than optimal, leading to more miss errors in the low prevalence condition.

scholarly journals Concurrent Guidance of Attention by Multiple Working Memory Items: Behavioral and Computational Evidence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cherie Zhou ◽  
Monicque M. Lorist ◽  
Sebastiaan Mathôt
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Behavioral Data ◽  
Drift Diffusion ◽  
Single Item ◽  
Multiple Item

AbstractDuring visual search, task-relevant representations in visual working memory (VWM), known as attentional templates, are assumed to guide attention. A current debate concerns whether only one (Single-Item-Template hypothesis, or SIT) or multiple (Multiple-Item-Template hypothesis, or MIT) items can serve as attentional templates simultaneously. The current study was designed to test these two hypotheses. Participants memorized two colors, prior to a visual-search task in which the target and the distractor could match or not match the colors held in VWM. Robust attentional guidance was observed when one of the memory colors was presented as the target (reduced response times [RTs] on target-match trials) or the distractor (increased RTs on distractor-match trials). We constructed two drift-diffusion models that implemented the MIT and SIT hypotheses, which are similar in their predictions about overall RTs, but differ in their predictions about RTs on individual trials. Critically, simulated RT distributions and error rates revealed a better match of the MIT hypothesis to the observed data than the SIT hypothesis. Taken together, our findings provide behavioral and computational evidence for the concurrent guidance of attention by multiple items in VWM.Significance statementTheories differ in how many items within visual working memory can guide attention at the same time. This question is difficult to address, because multiple- and single-item-template theories make very similar predictions about average response times. Here we use drift-diffusion modeling in addition to behavioral data, to model response times at an individual level. Crucially, we find that our model of the multiple-item-template theory predicts human behavior much better than our model of the single-item-template theory; that is, modeling of behavioral data provides compelling evidence for multiple attentional templates that are simultaneously active.

Cognitive Aging: General versus Process-Specific Slowing in a Visual Search Task

1996 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 118-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Gorman ◽  
Donald L. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
General Model ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Specific Model ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Alternative Process ◽  
General Slowing

The fact that response times increase as one ages has long been established. Previously, a model of general slowing in the nonlexical domains has done a really good job of explaining the differences between older and younger adults. However, an alternative process-specific model has not been conclusively ruled out. This experiment tested general and process-specific models of slowing in the nonlexical domain using older and younger adults performing a visual search task. The task manipulated the presence of the target, the number of search items, and the structure of the display of the search items. It was found that a process-specific model explained significantly more of the variability than a general model of slowing. It was also discovered that the process most greatly affected was that of deciding to terminate a search when no target was present in the display.

Slowing of Strategic and Nonstrategic Processes in a Visual Search Task

1997 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-104
Author(s):  
Michael F. Gorman ◽  
Donald L. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Specific Model ◽  
Decision Processes ◽  
Perceptual Quality ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
General Slowing

The fact that response times increase as one ages has long been established. Previous research has indicated that a process-specific model does a better job than the model of general slowing in explaining the differences between older and younger adults. This experiment tested a process-specific model of slowing using older and younger adults in a visual search task. The task manipulated the presence of the target, the number of search items, the structure of the display of the search items, the perceptual quality of the search items and the complexity of the response. It was found that encoding, motor, and decision processes were about equally delayed whereas the comparison process was delayed little if any.

Effects of Information Automation and Decision-Aiding Cueing on Action Implementation in a Visual Search Task

2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott M. Galster ◽  
Robert S. Bolia ◽  
Raja Parasuraman
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Performance Improvement ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Target Presence ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Decision Aiding ◽  
Cue Validity ◽  
Status Information

A visual search paradigm was used to examine the effects of status information as well as decision-aiding automation in a target detection and processing task. Manual, information automation, and decision-aiding automation conditions were manipulated with the size of the distractor set. Participants were required to respond to the presence or absence of a target in a time-limited trial. In the information automation condition, status information regarding target presence was presented to the participant. The participants were informed that the information automation was not perfectly reliable. A significant detection performance improvement was observed in the information automation condition. This improvement was more marked in the conditions with the higher number of distractors. Additionally, response times were improved when the information automation cue was present. Effects of cue validity and incorrect responses are presented. Implications of the results and future studies are discussed.

scholarly journals Spatial and feature-based suppression in working memory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam Matthews ◽  
Tobias Feldmann-Wüstefeld
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Positive Weight ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
With Memory

Working memory (WM) can guide attention towards items similar to its content, both based on features and locations maintained in WM. So far, however, this has only been demonstrated with memory items that are relevant and thus maintained with a positive weight. The finding that negative attention templates can support the suppression of upcoming distractors raises the question whether items can also be stored with a negative priority in WM. We let participants memorize the exact hue of a memory target that was presented among not-to-be-encoded memory distractors. Before their WM was probed, they performed a visual search task in which they had to find a target among distractors. When the search target was presented in the same color as an item suppressed from WM, response times (RTs) were longer than for a target presented in the same color as the memory target. Similarly, when the search target was presented at the same location as an items suppressed from WM, RTs were longer than for a target presented at the same location as the memory target. Our results suggest that items can be maintained in WM with a negative priority and then support the suppression of subsequent similar stimuli. Such items with negative priority in WM may be what constitutes negative attentional templates.

Comparison of Schizophrenics and Normals on a Visual Search Task

1976 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul N. Russell ◽  
Anthony E. Page
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Stimulus ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Response Selection ◽  
Stimulus Information ◽  
Rate Of Increase

The response times of 16 paranoids, 16 nonparanoids and 16 normals were compared on a search task which required subjects to identify target letters embedded in displays of varying numbers of non-targets. The rate of increase in response times with increased numbers of letters displayed was not markedly different for the various groups, although a derived measure of decision and response-selection time indicated that normals selected responses more rapidly. When compared with normals, schizophrenics seemed to experience more difficulty in response selection and decision than in processing visual stimulus information.

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