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Hong I, Wolfe JM. Research on re-searching: interrupted foraging is not disrupted foraging. Cogn Res Princ Implic 2024; 9:30. [PMID: 38748189 PMCID: PMC11096138 DOI: 10.1186/s41235-024-00556-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/01/2024] [Accepted: 04/26/2024] [Indexed: 05/18/2024] Open
Abstract
In classic visual search, observers typically search for the presence of a target in a scene or display. In foraging tasks, there may be multiple targets in the same display (or "patch"). Observers typically search for and collect these target items in one patch until they decide to leave that patch and move to the next one. This is a highly rule-governed behavior. The current study investigated whether these rules are disrupted when the foraging is interrupted in various manners. In Experiment 1, the foraging was briefly interrupted and then resumed in the same patch. In Experiments 2 and 3, the foraging in each patch either ended voluntarily or compulsorily after a fixed amount of time. In these cases, foraging resumed in a patch only after all patches were visited. Overall, the rules of foraging remained largely intact, though Experiment 2 shows that foraging rules can be overridden by the demand characteristics of the task. The results show that participants tended to perform approximately consistently despite interruptions. The results suggest that foraging behavior in a relatively simple foraging environment is resilient and not easily disrupted by interruption.
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Affiliation(s)
- Injae Hong
- Visual Attention Lab, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, 02135, USA
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
- Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea
| | - Jeremy M Wolfe
- Visual Attention Lab, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, 02135, USA.
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA.
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Bella-Fernández M, Suero Suñé M, Gil-Gómez de Liaño B. The time course of visual foraging in the lifespan: Spatial scanning, organization search, and target processing. Psychon Bull Rev 2024; 31:325-339. [PMID: 37620634 PMCID: PMC10867067 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02345-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/19/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023]
Abstract
Visual foraging is a variant of visual search, consisting of searching for an undetermined number of targets among distractors (e.g., looking for various LEGO pieces in a box). Under non-exhaustive tasks, the observer scans the display, picking those targets needed, not necessarily all of them, before leaving the search. To understand how the organization of such natural foraging tasks works, several measures of spatial scanning and organization have been proposed in the exhaustive foraging literature: best-r, intertarget distances, PAO, and target intersections. In the present study, we apply these measures and new Bayesian indexes to determine how the time course of visual foraging is organized in a dynamic non-exhaustive paradigm. In a large sample of observers (279 participants, 4-25 years old), we compare feature and conjunction foraging and explore how factors like set size and time course, not previously tested in exhaustive foraging, might affect search organization in non-exhaustive dynamic tasks. The results replicate previous findings showing younger observers' searching being less organized, feature conditions being more organized than conjunction conditions, and organization leading to a more effective search. Interestingly, observers tend to be less organized as set size increases, and search is less organized within a patch as it advances in time: Search organization decreases when search termination is coming, suggesting organization measures as potential clues to understand quitting rules in search. Our results highlight the importance of studying search organization in foraging as a critical source of understanding complex cognitive processes in visual search.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcos Bella-Fernández
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, C/ Ivan Pavlov 6, 28029, Madrid, Spain.
- Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Manuel Suero Suñé
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, C/ Ivan Pavlov 6, 28029, Madrid, Spain
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Nikolaev AR, Meghanathan RN, van Leeuwen C. Refixation behavior in naturalistic viewing: Methods, mechanisms, and neural correlates. Atten Percept Psychophys 2024:10.3758/s13414-023-02836-9. [PMID: 38169029 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-023-02836-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/17/2023] [Indexed: 01/05/2024]
Abstract
When freely viewing a scene, the eyes often return to previously visited locations. By tracking eye movements and coregistering eye movements and EEG, such refixations are shown to have multiple roles: repairing insufficient encoding from precursor fixations, supporting ongoing viewing by resampling relevant locations prioritized by precursor fixations, and aiding the construction of memory representations. All these functions of refixation behavior are understood to be underpinned by three oculomotor and cognitive systems and their associated brain structures. First, immediate saccade planning prior to refixations involves attentional selection of candidate locations to revisit. This process is likely supported by the dorsal attentional network. Second, visual working memory, involved in maintaining task-related information, is likely supported by the visual cortex. Third, higher-order relevance of scene locations, which depends on general knowledge and understanding of scene meaning, is likely supported by the hippocampal memory system. Working together, these structures bring about viewing behavior that balances exploring previously unvisited areas of a scene with exploiting visited areas through refixations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrey R Nikolaev
- Department of Psychology, Lund University, Box 213, 22100, Lund, Sweden.
- Brain & Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
| | | | - Cees van Leeuwen
- Brain & Cognition Research Unit, KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- Center for Cognitive Science, Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany
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Speers LJ, Bilkey DK. Maladaptive explore/exploit trade-offs in schizophrenia. Trends Neurosci 2023; 46:341-354. [PMID: 36878821 DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2023.02.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2022] [Revised: 01/30/2023] [Accepted: 02/08/2023] [Indexed: 03/07/2023]
Abstract
Schizophrenia is a complex disorder that remains poorly understood, particularly at the systems level. In this opinion article we argue that the explore/exploit trade-off concept provides a holistic and ecologically valid framework to resolve some of the apparent paradoxes that have emerged within schizophrenia research. We review recent evidence suggesting that fundamental explore/exploit behaviors may be maladaptive in schizophrenia during physical, visual, and cognitive foraging. We also describe how theories from the broader optimal foraging literature, such as the marginal value theorem (MVT), could provide valuable insight into how aberrant processing of reward, context, and cost/effort evaluations interact to produce maladaptive responses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucinda J Speers
- Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand
| | - David K Bilkey
- Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand.
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Kurdoglu RS, Jekel M, Ateş NY. Eristic reasoning: Adaptation to extreme uncertainty. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1004031. [PMID: 36844329 PMCID: PMC9947153 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1004031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2022] [Accepted: 01/23/2023] [Indexed: 02/11/2023] Open
Abstract
Heuristics (shortcut solution rules) can help adaptation to uncertainty by leading to sufficiently accurate decisions with little information. However, heuristics would fail under extreme uncertainty where information is so scarce that any heuristic would be highly misleading for accuracy-seeking. Thus, under very high levels of uncertainty, decision-makers rely on heuristics to no avail. We posit that eristic reasoning (i.e., self-serving inferences for hedonic pursuits), rather than heuristic reasoning, is adaptive when uncertainty is extreme, as eristic reasoning produces instant hedonic gratifications helpful for coping. Eristic reasoning aims at hedonic gains (e.g., relief from the anxiety of uncertainty) that can be pursued by self-serving inferences. As such, eristic reasoning does not require any information about the environment as it instead gets cues introspectively from bodily signals informing what the organism hedonically needs as shaped by individual differences. We explain how decision-makers can benefit from heuristic vs. eristic reasoning under different levels of uncertainty. As a result, by integrating the outputs of formerly published empirical research and our conceptual discussions pertaining to eristic reasoning, we conceptually criticize the fast-and-frugal heuristics approach, which implies that heuristics are the only means of adapting to uncertainty.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rasim Serdar Kurdoglu
- Faculty of Business Administration, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey,*Correspondence: Rasim Serdar Kurdoglu,
| | - Marc Jekel
- Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany,Marc Jekel,
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D’Amelio A, Patania S, Bursic S, Cuculo V, Boccignone G. Using Gaze for Behavioural Biometrics. SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2023; 23:1262. [PMID: 36772302 PMCID: PMC9920149 DOI: 10.3390/s23031262] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2022] [Revised: 01/15/2023] [Accepted: 01/20/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
A principled approach to the analysis of eye movements for behavioural biometrics is laid down. The approach grounds in foraging theory, which provides a sound basis to capture the uniqueness of individual eye movement behaviour. We propose a composite Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process for quantifying the exploration/exploitation signature characterising the foraging eye behaviour. The relevant parameters of the composite model, inferred from eye-tracking data via Bayesian analysis, are shown to yield a suitable feature set for biometric identification; the latter is eventually accomplished via a classical classification technique. A proof of concept of the method is provided by measuring its identification performance on a publicly available dataset. Data and code for reproducing the analyses are made available. Overall, we argue that the approach offers a fresh view on either the analyses of eye-tracking data and prospective applications in this field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alessandro D’Amelio
- PHuSe Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Milano Statale, Via Celoria 18, 20133 Milan, Italy
| | - Sabrina Patania
- PHuSe Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Milano Statale, Via Celoria 18, 20133 Milan, Italy
| | - Sathya Bursic
- PHuSe Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Milano Statale, Via Celoria 18, 20133 Milan, Italy
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milan, Italy
| | - Vittorio Cuculo
- PHuSe Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Milano Statale, Via Celoria 18, 20133 Milan, Italy
| | - Giuseppe Boccignone
- PHuSe Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Milano Statale, Via Celoria 18, 20133 Milan, Italy
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Wiesner CD, Meyer J, Lindner C. Detours increase local knowledge-Exploring the hidden benefits of self-control failure. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0257717. [PMID: 34597326 PMCID: PMC8486128 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257717] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2021] [Accepted: 09/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Self-control enables people to override momentary thoughts, emotions, or impulses in order to pursue long-term goals. Good self-control is a predictor for health, success, and subjective well-being, as bad self-control is for the opposite. Therefore, the question arises why evolution has not endowed us with perfect self-control. In this article, we draw some attention to the hidden benefits of self-control failure and present a new experimental paradigm that captures both costs and benefits of self-control failure. In an experiment, participants worked on three consecutive tasks: 1) In a transcription task, we manipulated how much effortful self-control two groups of participants had to exert. 2) In a number-comparison task, participants of both groups were asked to compare numbers and ignore distracting neutral versus reward-related pictures. 3) After a pause for recreation, participants were confronted with an unannounced recognition task measuring whether they had incidentally encoded the distracting pictures during the previous number-comparison task. The results showed that participants who exerted a high amount of effortful self-control during the first task shifted their priorities and attention toward the distractors during the second self-control demanding task: The cost of self-control failure was reflected in worse performance in the number-comparison task. Moreover, the group which had exerted a high amount of self-control during the first task and showed self-control failure during the second task was better in the unannounced third task. The benefit of self-control failure during number comparison was reflected in better performance during the recognition task. However, costs and benefits were not specific for reward-related distractors but also occurred with neutral pictures. We propose that the hidden benefit of self-control failure lies in the exploration of distractors present during goal pursuit, i.e. the collection of information about the environment and the potential discovery of new sources of reward. Detours increase local knowledge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Dirk Wiesner
- Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany
| | - Jennifer Meyer
- Leibniz-Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN), Kiel, Germany
| | - Christoph Lindner
- Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg (UHH), Hamburg, Germany
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