title: Context matters: the structure of task goals affects accuracy in multiple-target visual search.
abstract: Career visual searchers such as radiologists and airport security screeners strive to conduct accurate visual searches, but despite extensive training, errors still occur. A key difference between searches in radiology and airport security is the structure of the search task: Radiologists typically scan a certain number of medical images (fixed objective), and airport security screeners typically search X-rays for a specified time period (fixed duration). Might these structural differences affect accuracy? We compared performance on a search task administered either under constraints that approximated radiology or airport security. Some displays contained more than one target because the presence of multiple targets is an established source of errors for career searchers, and accuracy for additional targets tends to be especially sensitive to contextual conditions. Results indicate that participants searching within the fixed objective framework produced more multiple-target search errors; thus, adopting a fixed duration framework could improve accuracy for career searchers.
authors: Duke University, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, USA. Electronic address: kait.clark@duke.edu.
authors: Kait
authors: K
authors: Clark
authors: Brown University, Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, & Psychological Sciences, USA.
authors: Matthew S
authors: MS
authors: Cain
authors: Duke University Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, USA.
authors: R Alison
authors: RA
authors: Adcock
authors: Duke University, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, USA.
authors: Stephen R
authors: SR
authors: Mitroff
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011930:Reaction Time; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Airport security screening; Radiology; Visual search