Abstract
Wolfe, Place, and Horowitz (2007) presented data from multiple experiments designed to increase the real-world relevance of the typical multiple object tracking paradigm (Pylyshyn & Storm, 1988). They found that continuously adding and removing objects from the tracked set during tracking produced very little change in performance. Ericson and Christensen (VSS 2009) tested the addition and removal of objects during tracking separately, and found that performance increases with an addition and decreases equally with a removal as compared to tracking a fixed set. The increase was explained using a performance model that assumes the probability of losing tracking on a dot is solely a function of the number of dots tracked at that time. A new second experiment demonstrates that the decreased accuracy produced by removing an object is eliminated when the object to be removed is offset rather than cued via sudden onset. The results of applying the performance model support the idea that object tracking can be described as a continuous-time Markov process with highly efficient reallocation of attention as long as cues do not conflict with reallocation.
AFRL 711th HPW, Consortium Research Fellowship.