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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Sec. Cognitive Neuroscience
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1436564
This article is part of the Research Topic Guidance of Search by Long-Term and Working Memory View all 6 articles

Investigating the effects of context, visual working memory, and inhibitory control in hybrid visual search

Provisionally accepted
Alessandra Barbosa Alessandra Barbosa 1Gonzalo Ruarte Gonzalo Ruarte 2Anthony Ries Anthony Ries 3Juan E. Kamienkowski Juan E. Kamienkowski 2Matias J. Ison Matias J. Ison 1*
  • 1 School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England, United Kingdom
  • 2 Laboratorio de Inteligencia Artificial Aplicada(LIAA), Departamento de Informática, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 3 U.S. Army DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, APG, Maryland, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In real-life scenarios, individuals frequently engage in tasks that involve searching for one of distinct items stored in memory. This combined process of visual search and memory search is known as hybrid search. To date, most hybrid search studies have been restricted to average observers looking for previously well-memorized targets in blank backgrounds. Here we investigated the effects of context and the role of memory in hybrid search by modifying the task's memorization phase to occur in all-new single trials. Additionally, we aimed to assess how individual differences in visual working memory capacity and inhibitory control influence performance during hybrid search. In an online experiment, 110 participants searched for potential targets in images with and without context. A change detection and go/no-go task were also performed to measure working memory capacity and inhibitory control, respectively. We show that, in target present trials, the main hallmarks of hybrid search remain present, with a linear relationship between reaction time and visual set size, and a logarithmic relationship between reaction time and memory set size. These behavioral results can be reproduced by using a simple drift diffusion model. Finally, working memory capacity did not predict most search performance measures. Inhibitory control, when relationships were significant, could account for only a small portion of the variability in the data. This study provides insights into the effects of context and individual differences on search efficiency and termination.

    Keywords: visual search, memory search, real-world scenes, individual differences, visual working memory capacity, Inhibitory Control

    Received: 22 May 2024; Accepted: 06 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Barbosa, Ruarte, Ries, Kamienkowski and Ison. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Matias J. Ison, School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, England, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.