Eye movements reflect expertise development in hybrid search

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Domain-specific expertise alters information processing, perception, and memory.
• Skilled visual search is evident in professions like refereeing, security, and medicine.
• Previous research often compares experts to novices, but few studies track behavioral changes with accumulating experience.

Purpose of the Study:

• To longitudinally document experience-dependent changes in visual search behavior.
• To understand how accumulating experience affects visual scanning and cognitive processes.
• To investigate the link between expertise development and oculomotor behavior.

Main Methods:

• Participants acquired experience through multiple experimental sessions over an academic semester.
• Eye movements were recorded while participants searched for 20 target categories simultaneously.
• Target presence and frequency varied within search displays.

Main Results:

• Search accuracy increased and response times decreased with greater experience.
• Fixation duration and probability decreased, while saccade amplitude and visual span increased.
• Behavioral improvements reflect enhanced memory-guided attention and broader visual processing per fixation.

Conclusions:

• Expertise in visual search develops through experience-driven changes in oculomotor control.
• Enhanced visual search performance is associated with more efficient scanning patterns and improved attentional guidance.
• The findings highlight the role of memory and visual processing capacity in the development of expertise.