Zinchenko Artyom, Conci Markus, Müller Hermann J, Geyer Thomas
Department Psychologie, Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine und Experimentelle Psychologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Leopoldstraße 13, 80802, Munich, Germany.
Department of Psychological Science, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2018 Jul;80(5):1096-1109. doi: 10.3758/s13414-018-1500-4.
Repeatedly searching through invariant spatial arrangements in visual search displays leads to the buildup of memory about these displays (contextual-cueing effect). In the present study, we investigate (1) whether contextual cueing is influenced by global statistical properties of the task and, if so, (2) whether these properties increase the overall strength (asymptotic level) or the temporal development (speed) of learning. Experiment 1a served as baseline against which we tested the effects of increased or decreased proportions of repeated relative to nonrepeated displays (Experiments 1b and 1c, respectively), thus manipulating the global statistical properties of search environments. Importantly, probability variations were achieved by manipulating the number of nonrepeated (baseline) displays so as to equate the total number of repeated displays across experiments. In Experiment 1d, repeated and nonrepeated displays were presented in longer streaks of trials, thus establishing a stable environment of sequences of repeated displays. Our results showed that the buildup of contextual cueing was expedited in the statistically rich Experiments 1b and 1d, relative to the baseline Experiment 1a. Further, contextual cueing was entirely absent when repeated displays occurred in the minority of trials (Experiment 1c). Together, these findings suggest that contextual cueing is modulated by observers' assumptions about the reliability of search environments.
在视觉搜索显示中反复搜索不变的空间排列会导致对这些显示的记忆积累（情境线索效应）。在本研究中，我们调查：（1）情境线索是否受任务的全局统计属性影响，如果是，那么（2）这些属性是否会增加学习的整体强度（渐近水平）或时间发展（速度）。实验1a作为基线，我们据此测试重复显示与非重复显示比例增加或减少的影响（分别为实验1b和1c），从而操纵搜索环境的全局统计属性。重要的是，通过操纵非重复（基线）显示的数量来实现概率变化，以便在各实验中使重复显示的总数相等。在实验1d中，重复和非重复显示以更长的试验序列呈现，从而建立一个重复显示序列的稳定环境。我们的结果表明，相对于基线实验1a，在统计丰富的实验1b和1d中，情境线索的积累加快。此外，当重复显示出现在少数试验中时，情境线索完全不存在（实验1c）。总之，这些发现表明情境线索受观察者对搜索环境可靠性的假设调节。
