Clarke, Alasdair DF and Nowakowska, Anna and Sauerberger, Kyle and Rosenbaum, David A and Zentall, Thomas R and Hunt, Amelia R (2024) Does precrastination explain why some observers are suboptimal in a visual search task? Royal Society Open Science, 11 (4). 191816-. DOI https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191816
Clarke, Alasdair DF and Nowakowska, Anna and Sauerberger, Kyle and Rosenbaum, David A and Zentall, Thomas R and Hunt, Amelia R (2024) Does precrastination explain why some observers are suboptimal in a visual search task? Royal Society Open Science, 11 (4). 191816-. DOI https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191816
Clarke, Alasdair DF and Nowakowska, Anna and Sauerberger, Kyle and Rosenbaum, David A and Zentall, Thomas R and Hunt, Amelia R (2024) Does precrastination explain why some observers are suboptimal in a visual search task? Royal Society Open Science, 11 (4). 191816-. DOI https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191816
Abstract
How do we decide where to search for a target? Optimal search relies on first considering the relative informational value of different locations and then executing eye movements to the best options. However, many participants consistently move their eyes to locations that can be easily ascertained to neither contain the target nor provide new information about the target's location. Here, we asked whether this suboptimal search behaviour represents a specific example of a general tendency towards precrastination: starting sub-goals of a task before they are needed, and in so doing, spending longer time on doing the task than is necessary. To test this hypothesis, we asked 200 participants to do two tasks: retrieve two heavy buckets (one close and one far) and search for a line segment. Precrastination is defined as consistently picking up the closer bucket first, versus the more efficient strategy of picking up the farther bucket first. Search efficiency is the proportion of fixations directed to more cluttered regions of the search array. Based on the pilot data, we predicted an association of precrastination with inefficient search strategies. Personality inventories were also administered to identify stable characteristics associated with these strategies. In the final dataset, there was no clear association between search strategy and precrastination, nor did these correlate strongly with any of the personality measures collected. This article received in-principle acceptance (IPA) at <i>Royal Society Open Science</i> on 29 January 2020. The accepted Stage 1 version of the manuscript, not including results and discussion, may be found at https://osf.io/p2sjx. This preregistration was performed prior to data collection and analysis.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | optimal behaviour; visual search; eye movements |
Divisions: | Faculty of Science and Health Faculty of Science and Health > Psychology, Department of |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 11 Jul 2024 18:46 |
Last Modified: | 07 Aug 2024 16:43 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/38765 |
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