The Effect Of Predetermined Probability And Visual Confusion On Multi-target Search

Dual-Target Search is a common cognitive process in which we search for multiple targets from interferents.Targets that have been discovered will prevent the future search for the influence of visual clutter and target prevalence.Visual clutter is a status of which the performance is lowered due to the excessive projects or organizations.Target prevalence is the ratio for the appearance of target in the totality.The research is composed of two parts.We conduct the research under two conditions which are the stimulus constraints of geometry and solid view photograph.We will compare the influence of target prevalence,target complexity,and environment complexity on the performance of dual target search.Part I is designed to be a combined experiment with the application of 2(target prevalence: high,low)× 2(target complexity: high,low)× 2(environment complexity: high,low).Both target prevalence and target complexity are between-items factors.The environment complexity is within-items factor.The dependent variables are the accuracy rate and response time of the second target search in the task of dual-target search.Part II is designed to be a combined experiment with the application of 2(target prevalence: high,low)× 2(target complexity: high,low)× 2(environment complexity: high,low).Both target prevalence and environment complexity are between-items factors.The target complexity is within-items factor.The dependent variables are the accuracy rate and response time of the second target search in the task of dual-target search.Result:(1)Under the context with the stimulus constraint of geometry,the primary effect of target prevalence is significant.The performance of high target prevalence is significantly higher than that of low target prevalence in the second target search.However,the primary effect of target prevalence is insignificant under the context with the stimulus constraint of solid view photograph.(2)The primary effect of environment complexity and target complexity is significant.The performance of high environment complexity and target complexity is significantly lower than that of low environment complexity and target complexity in the second target search.(3)The interaction effect of environment complexity and target complexity is significant.There is a larger difference between performances of different target complexities with the environment complexity being high under the context with the stimulus constraint of geometry.Under the context with the stimulus constraint of solid view photograph,the difference is even larger between performances of different target complexities with the environment complexity being low.(4)Under the context with the stimulus constraint of solid view photograph,the interaction effect of target prevalence with the environment complexity and target complexity is significant.The performance of high environment complexity,target complexity is significantly lower than that of low environment complexity,target complexity with the target prevalence being low in the second target search.Research conclusion:I.The target prevalence has an impact on the threshold value of visual search.When there are few targets under the context with the stimulus constraint of geometry,the threshold value of visual search is high,and the performance of visual search is low.When there are more targets,the threshold value of visual search is low,and the performance of visual search is high.Under the context with the stimulus constraint of solid view photograph,deep process is required regardless of the target quantity.The impact of target prevalence on the sensation threshold of target imposes no difference to the performance of search.II.Target complexity and environment complexity require the consumption of cognitive resource for the search.The target and environment of search should be as simple as possible for the interface design.III.The cognitive resource invested for the search should be fewer when there are few targets.Visual clutter exacerbates the consumption of cognitive resource for which the performance of search is more sensitive to visual clutter.