Exploring the roles of display properties and display memorability in the contextual cueing task

Ballew, Kirk Michael

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/108433 Copy

Description

Title

Exploring the roles of display properties and display memorability in the contextual cueing task

Author(s)

Ballew, Kirk Michael

Issue Date

2020-07-08

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Lleras, Alejandro

Committee Member(s)

Simons, Daniel J

Department of Study

Psychology

Discipline

Psychology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• contextual cueing
• simulation
• simulation study
• visual search

Abstract

An underlying assumption of contextual cueing experiments is that repetition of a display will elicit contextual cueing, irrespective of the particular arrangement of items in the display. However, there is reason to doubt this assumption; a number of display properties have been shown to predict response times in visual search experiments, including target eccentricity, target quadrant, visual crowding, and visual clutter. The effects of display properties may therefore limit the interpretability of contextual cueing effects that do not control for differences in these variables. Further, display properties may be linked to the memorability of a display. If this is the case, then it may be possible for displays with certain properties to facilitate or inhibit context learning, because such displays are more or less memorable. The present study sought to estimate the impact of the confounding influence of display properties on RTs in the contextual cueing task. A multiple regression analysis of a large contextual cueing data set confirmed that target eccentricity, target quadrant, and visual clutter impact response times in the contextual cueing task. The first simulation study showed that significant group-level contextual cueing effects are unlikely to arise in the absence of context learning. However, display properties can influence the size of effects analyzed at the level of individual displays. A second simulation study investigated a variety of parameters that may influence RTs in the contextual cueing task. Surprisingly, the strength of association between display properties and display memorability was not predictive of contextual cueing. However, the mean of the memorability score distribution, the probability of a learned display showing an effect, and the magnitude of the effect were all predictive of contextual cueing. Crucially, interactions between these variables suggest that contextual cueing may reflect small effects that occur somewhat frequently or larger effects that occur infrequently, but not somewhere in between.

Graduation Semester

2020-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108433

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2020 Kirk Ballew

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