An adaptive (tracking) procedure for measuring visual search

PEST, an adaptive (tracking) procedure originally developed for sensory research, was modified for cognitive studies with the multiple sequential frames paradigm and a letter-search task. The program which controlled stimulus presentation was designed to track the frame duration required for successful search on 75% of trials (the duration threshold). For each of the three subjects used, the threshold increased as a linear function of the number of sequentially presented frames, which varied between 1 and 10. Each tracking run was immediately followed by 40 trials with frame-exposure time fixed at the computer-selected threshold. Performance on these fixed level trials was close to the expected 75% correct. The Discussion addresses issues related to the use of the threshold measure in basic and applied cognitive research, explores the present findings about performance on fixed level trials at the computer-selected threshold, and examines the increase in duration threshold with the number of sequentially presented frames.