The influence of selection modality, display dynamics and error feedback on patterns of human foraging

ABSTRACT

In previous studies, we have used an iPad task to explore how humans “forage” through static displays containing multiple targets from two categories. When demands on attention were increased, foraging patterns tended to shift from random category selection to exhaustive category selection. Here, we used the same task on a vertically oriented touch-screen. In separate blocks, static or dynamic target items were selected using different modalities, specifically: (a) mouse (b) touchscreen or (c) infrared hand tracker. Although the different selection modalities varied considerably in terms of familiarity and difficulty of use, there was a minimal effect on the patterns of foraging. While there was a consistent reduction in the number of category switches with increased attentional load, the tendency to use exhaustive runs was much reduced, particularly with dynamic displays. We suggest that this pattern is a consequence of generally slowed response times. These findings indicate that in addition to capacity limits, temporal constraints are likely to be an important determinant of foraging patterns in humans. We introduce the term “foraging tempo” to capture this latter notion and to emphasize the probable role played by the overall pace of the regular, repetitive selections required during multi-target search tasks.

KEYWORDS:

• Foraging
• visual search
• attention
• foraging tempo
• dynamic displays
• error feedback
• temporal constraints

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Marthese Borg, Daniela Cassar, Miko Darmanin and Jeremy Mifsud for help with data collection. We are also grateful for Tram Nguyen for commenting on an earlier version of the paper. IMT’s research is supported by the Academic Work Resource Fund and the University Research Fund of the University of Malta. AK was supported by the Icelandic Research Fund (grant #152427) as well as a grant from the Research Fund of the University of Iceland.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ian M. Thornton http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6328-3536

Claudio de’Sperati https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7322-2240

Árni Kristjánsson https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4168-4886

Additional information

Funding

IMT’s research is supported by the Academic Work Resource Fund and the University Research Fund of the University of Malta. AK was supported by the Icelandic Research Fund (grant #152427) as well as a grant from the Research Fund of the University of Iceland.