"Satisfaction" in search: Individuals' own search expectations predict their errors in multiple-target search

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Visual Search Research

Background:

• The
• satisfaction-of-search
• phenomenon describes how finding one target can impair the detection of subsequent targets.
• Previous research lacked empirical evidence for the proposed cause: premature search cessation due to satisfaction.
• Alternative theories are considered, but the satisfaction-of-search hypothesis is re-examined.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if expectations about multiple targets influence search biases.
• To determine if these search biases predict the rate of missed additional targets.
• To provide a mechanistic explanation for satisfaction-of-search errors.

Main Methods:

• Participants searched for one or two targets in visual displays.
• Trials varied: some completed search, others terminated after the first target.
• When trials terminated early, participants guessed if an additional target was present.

Main Results:

• Search time for the first target correlated inversely with expectations of a second target.
• Participants' expectations often underestimated the actual probability of multiple targets.
• Stronger individual
• one-target bias
• correlated with a higher likelihood of missing subsequent targets.

Conclusions:

• Search performance is influenced by an individual's expectations, formed from their own behavior.
• These expectations create biases that mechanistically explain
• satisfaction-of-search
• errors.
• This study offers a novel explanation for why multiple targets are missed in visual search tasks.