Riggs Charlotte A, Cornes Katherine, Godwin Hayward J, Liversedge Simon P, Guest Richard, Donnelly Nick
University of Southampton, School of Psychology, Highfield, Southampton, Hampshire SO17 1BJ UK.
University of Kent, School of Engineering and Digital Arts, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NT UK.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2017;2(1):14. doi: 10.1186/s41235-017-0049-4. Epub 2017 Feb 20.
A number of real-world search tasks (i.e. police search, detection of improvised explosive devices (IEDs)) require searchers to search exhaustively across open ground. In the present study, we simulated this problem by asking individuals (Experiments 1a and 1b) and dyads (Experiment 2) to search for coin targets pseudo-randomly located in a bounded area of open grassland terrain. In Experiment 1a, accuracy, search time, and the route used to search an area were measured. Participants tended to use an 'S'-shaped pattern with a common width of search lane. Increased accuracy was associated with slower, but also variable, search speed, though only when participants moved along the length (as opposed to across the width) of the search area. Experiment 1b varied the number of targets available within the bounded search area and in doing so varied target prevalence and density. The results confirmed that the route taken in Experiment 1a generalizes across variations in target prevalence/density. In Experiment 2, accuracy, search time, and the search strategy used by dyads was measured. While dyads were more accurate than individuals, dyads that opted to conduct two independent searches were more accurate than those who opted to split the search space. The implications of these results for individuals and dyads when searching for targets in open space are discussed.
许多现实世界中的搜索任务（如警方搜索、简易爆炸装置（IED）探测）要求搜索者在开阔地面上进行彻底搜索。在本研究中，我们通过让个体（实验1a和1b）和二人组（实验2）搜索伪随机放置在有界开阔草地地形区域内的硬币目标来模拟这个问题。在实验1a中，测量了搜索一个区域的准确性、搜索时间和使用的路线。参与者倾向于使用具有共同搜索通道宽度的“S”形模式。准确性的提高与较慢但也变化不定的搜索速度相关，不过这仅当参与者沿着搜索区域的长度（而非宽度）移动时才成立。实验1b改变了有界搜索区域内可用目标的数量，从而改变了目标的流行程度和密度。结果证实，实验1a中采用的路线在目标流行程度/密度的变化中具有普遍性。在实验2中，测量了二人组的准确性、搜索时间和使用的搜索策略。虽然二人组比个体更准确，但选择进行两次独立搜索的二人组比那些选择划分搜索空间的二人组更准确。讨论了这些结果对于个体和二人组在开阔空间中搜索目标时的意义。
