Tracking Multiple Moving Objects
The ability to track moving stimuli is a critical facet of our everyday lives, from driving and following cars, to navigating through busy hallways, as well as watching or playing various sports. In laboratory settings this ability is known as Multiple Object Tracking (MOT). My research has focused on the attentional properties used in order to successfully perform the MOT task. Specifically, my findings have demonstrated that attention is flexible during the tracking process and can effectively reallocate itself to targets as needed without demonstrating a reduction in tracking accuracy. Additionally, I have found that one of the primary causes that reduces tracking accuracy is the presence of unexpected changes in trajectory for the to be tracked objects.
Relevant References:
Ericson, J. M. & Beck, M. R. (2013). Changing target trajectories influences tracking performance. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 20(5), 951-956, doi: 10.3758/s13423-013-0424-1
Ericson, J. M. & Christensen, J. (2012). Reallocating attention during multiple-object tracking. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 74, 831-840, doi: 10.3758/s13414-012-0294-z
Ericson, J. M., Goldstein, R. R., & Beck, M. R. (2013, May). Capture and tracking: Where does attention go? Poster presented at the Vision Sciences Society annual meeting, Naples FL.
Long-Term Visual Search
Individuals constantly search their environment to find specific targets. Most searches are mundane—scanning your inbox for an email, locating a spatula on a messy counter top, or finding your favorite t-shirt in your closet. Such searches are typically important to complete successfully (e.g., it is hard to cook eggs without a spatula), but they do not have the same gravitas as some other types of search—for example, it is vital that radiologists find cancerous masses or abnormalities in a mammogram. Radiological visual searches, and other searches of the same ilk, demand a high level of accuracy that remains high across a variety of conditions and scenarios. A core element for producing high performance is the ability to take information learned in one search and then applying it to later searches. This ability, retaining reoccurring information in memory so that it can be used to aid future searches (which we call “Long-Term Visual Search” (LTVS)), has gone relatively unstudied. However, understanding what factors guide LTVS is critical for determining how individuals gain visual search expertise and how their gained expertise influence subsequent searches. The goal of this research is to identify properties of LTVS by examining how a high level of search accuracy is attained and then maintained over the course of multiple trials and/or search sessions.
Relevant References:
Ericson, J. M., Biggs, A. T., Winkle., J. A., Gancayco, C. A., & Mitroff, S. R. (2015, May) Long-Term Visual Search: Examing Trial-by-Trial Learning Over Extended Visual Search Experiences. Talk presnted at the Vision Sciences Society annual meeting, St. Pete's Beach, FL.
Memory for Global and Local Stimuli
When looking out in the world we have the ability to identify items either as a group/large item or into smaller tinier components. For instance, one could observe a forest before seeing an individual tree, or even further notice a tree before examining each individual leaf. In general, it has been shown that individuals notice these larger features (forest) before the smaller features (trees), a phenomenon known as the global precedence effect (GPE). It has been shown that this GPE can persist into our memory, however what is not known is whether these representations of features at either the global or local level could be confused in our recollections. My research strives to understand how these features are bound together to form a representation in our memories and whether these features are lost or confused across multiple items.
Relevant References:
Ericson, J. M. & Beck, M. R. (2012, May). Features or levels? Evidence for binding levels better than features. Poster presented at the Vision Sciences Society annual meeting, Naples FL.
Ericson, J. M. & Beck, M. R. (2011, May). Is there a bias towards global information in visual working memory. Poster presented at the Vision Sciences Society annual meeting, Naples FL.
Inattentional Blindness while Driving
While operating a motor vehicle there are many distractions that could potentially pull your attention away from the most important task - driving safely down the road. These distractions can range from adjusting the radio, cell phone use, to looking at advertisements in our surroundings. However, research has demonstrated that individuals can miss critical target information directly in view, a phenomenon known as inattentional blindness. My research investigates how individuals detect information while perfoming a cognitively demanding car counting/lane changing task similar to moderate to heavy traffic conditions. Using virtual driving environments I measure braking, acceleration, headway, lane deviations, and a plethora of other variables and measure how participants may - or may not - react to the sudden onset of critical targets within the drivers path.
Funding for this project came from the Gulf Coast Center for Transportation and Evacuation Resiliancy.
Relevant References:
Ericson, J. M. & Beck, M. R., Parr, S. A., & Wolshon, B. (2013, November). Inattentional Blindness in Simulated Driving Environments. Poster presented at the Psychonomics Society annual meeting, Toronto ON.