A novel, unbiased approach to evaluating subsequent search misses in dual target visual search
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A novel, unbiased approach to evaluating subsequent search misses in dual target visual search Mark W. Becker 1 & Kaitlyn Anderson 1 & Jan W. Brascamp 1
# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Research in radiology and visual cognition suggest that finding one target during visual search may result in increased misses for a second target, an effect known as subsequent search misses (SSM). Here, we demonstrate that the common method of calculating second-target detection performance is biased and could produce spurious SSM effects. We describe the source of that bias and document factors that influence its magnitude. We use a modification of signal-detection theory to develop a novel, unbiased method of calculating the expected value for dual-target performance under the null hypothesis. We then apply our novel method to two of our data sets that showed modest SSM effects when calculated in the traditional manner. Our correction reduced the effect size to the point that there was no longer a significant SSM effect. We then applied our method to a published data set that had a larger effect size when calculated using the traditional calculation as well as when using an alternative calculation that was recently proposed to account for biases in the traditional method. We find that both the traditional method and the recently proposed alternative substantially overestimate the magnitude of the SSM effect in these data, but a significant SSM effect persisted even with our calculation. We recommend that future SSM studies use our method to ensure accurate effectsize estimates, and suggest that the method be applied to reanalyze published results, particularly those with small effect sizes, to rule out the possibility that they were spurious. Keywords Visual search . Signal detection theory . Statistical inference
More than 50 years ago, radiologists first raised a concern that displays with multiple targets may result in more misses (Tuddenham, 1962). Specifically, they were concerned that the act of finding one target may reduce the likelihood of finding a second target (Berbaum, Franken, Caldwell, & Schartz, 2010; Berbaum et al., 1994; Berbaum et al., 1996). Initial evidence supported this concern, and the effect was coined “satisfaction of search.” That moniker suggested a mechanism—namely, that once a target had been found, searchers would be somewhat “satisfied” with their performance and may not search as diligently for a second target. Although the research of this phenomenon began in radiology, visual cognition researchers have more recently started to investigate the mechanisms responsible for this decrement in second-target detection. One conclusion of that work is that there is little empirical evidence to * Mark W. Becker [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, 316 Physic Rd., East Lansing, MI 48823, USA
suggest that the observed deficits in second-target detection can be attributed to less diligent searching for the second target as suggested by the satisfaction account (Berbaum et
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