Analysing and modelling sequences of eye movement behaviour during visual search

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Eye movement during visual searching is an important behaviour that help us identify and examine different objects within our environment. We engage in visual search regularly and it is a task with great significance both in our day-to-day life and in several critical domains such as airport security, radiographic and forensic searches. The proposed research project is aimed at examining sequences of eye movements that searchers make during visual search. A range of issues are to be explored, including how searchers plan the movements of their eyes from one location to another, how many objects searchers can hold in their memory during visual search before they forget and return to a previously visited object (i.e., memory capacity), and failures to identify objects when we search. Many of these concepts has only been partially examined before by looking at averages, or overall levels. However, relatively little work has been conducted that examined when and why certain behaviours occur during visual search. Therefore, the project will look at both the degree to which searchers plan future fixations beyond the current fixation, as well as the degree to which searchers remember where they have already searched. In addition, a detailed account of how individual differences such as working memory capacity can influence memory in search and fixation planning will be examined. Overall, the project aims to develop a new model of visual search that can explain the sequences of fixations made by searchers when they search for a target in their environment.