In a series of experiments which simulated the inspection of sheet material and simple items, target uncertainty was found in several cases to have a significant effect on search times. The distributions of search times and the numerous occurrences of target position effects confirmed that search strategies were not entirely random. By recording eye-movements, subjects were found to employ very different search strategies which highlighted the problem encountered when attempting to infer search strategies based exclusively on search times.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BloomfieldJ.R., 1973, Experiments in visual search. In VISUAL SEARCH (Washington D.C.: National Academy of Sciences) 1–25.
2.
BrownB.MouleT.H., 1975, The effect of local target surround and whole background constraint on visual search times. Human Factors, 17, 81–88.
3.
GouldJ.D., 1973, Eye movements during visual search and memory search. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 98, 184–195.
4.
KrendelE.S.WodinskyJ., 1960, Visual search in unstructured fields. In VISUAL SEARCH TECHNIQUES (Eds. MorrisA.HorneE.) (NAS-NRS Pub. 712).
5.
KristoffersonM.W., 1972, Types and frequency of errors in visual search. Perception and Psychophysics, 11, 325–328.
6.
ThomasLlewellyn E.L.1969, Search behaviour. The Radiologic Clinic of North America, 7, 403–417.
7.
LovieA.D.LovieP., 1968. The effect of a horizontally structured field and target brightness on visual search and detection times. Ergonomics, 11, 359–367.
8.
LovieA.D.LovieP., 1970, The effect of mixed visual contrast schedules on detection times for both free and horizontally structured visual search. Ergonomics, 13, 735–741.
9.
NeisserU.NovickR.LazarR., 1963, Searching for ten targets simultaneously, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 17, 955–961.
10.
SternbergS., 1975, Memory scanning: New findings and current controversies. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 17, 1–32.
11.
TownsendC.A.FryG.A., 1960, Automatic scanning of serial photographs. In VISUAL SEARCH TECHNIQUES (Eds. MorrisA.HorneE.) (NAS-NRS Pub. 712).