Research on re-searching: interrupted foraging is not disrupted foraging

Hong, Injae; Wolfe, Jeremy M. · 2024 · DOAJ

DOI: 10.1186/s41235-024-00556-8

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Summary

This study investigates the resilience of visual foraging behavior when interrupted, specifically examining whether the decision rules governing when to leave a search patch remain intact under disrupted conditions. Visual foraging involves collecting multiple targets from a display ("patch") before moving to the next, a process often modeled by the Marginal Value Theorem (MVT), which posits that foragers should leave a patch when the instantaneous rate of return drops to the average rate of return. While interruptions are common in real-world expert tasks like radiology, it is unclear if such disruptions alter optimal quitting strategies or if foraging behavior is robust against them. The authors conducted three experiments using a simulated "berry picking" task to determine if brief interruptions or forced patch changes disrupt these ingrained foraging rules. In Experiment 1, participants foraged for targets in on-screen patches. In interrupted trials, foraging was paused for 2–3 seconds to answer a question before resuming in the same patch; in uninterrupted trials, foraging continued until the participant chose to leave. Results showed no significant difference in the quantity of targets collected, the quality of selection (positive predictive value), or the patch-leaving strategy between conditions. Participants in both groups left patches when the instantaneous rate of return approximated the average rate, indicating that brief interruptions did not disrupt MVT-consistent behavior. Experiments 2 and 3 examined scenarios where participants visited all patches once before revisiting them. In the "Forced Move" condition, participants were compelled to leave patches after a fixed time, while in the "Choice Move" condition, they left voluntarily. Upon revisiting patches, participants in the Forced Move condition adjusted their behavior to align with MVT predictions, effectively overriding the initial forced constraints. However, the study notes that demand characteristics can influence behavior, as seen in Experiment 2 where task expectations played a role. The findings demonstrate that visual foraging behavior is highly resilient and not easily disrupted by interruptions. Participants maintained consistent performance and adhered to optimal patch-leaving rules even when foraging was split or resumed after visiting other patches. This suggests that the cognitive mechanisms underlying the balance between exploitation and exploration are robust. The implications are significant for fields requiring sustained visual search, such as medical imaging and security screening, where interruptions are frequent. The results indicate that experts can likely return to interrupted tasks without significant degradation in search efficiency or strategy, provided the foraging environment remains relatively stable. This challenges the assumption that interruptions necessarily impair complex visual search performance, highlighting the adaptability of human foraging behavior.

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• prospective memory interruptions