Simulating the Human Visual "Find" Command

对于大多数计算机用户来说，可视显示器提供了最高带宽的信息吞吐量。然而，视觉显示的全部潜力往往没有实现。视觉布局通常设计得很差，很少评估，主要基于设计师的直觉和自省。尽管一些视觉界面设计师已经对什么是有效的有了很好的理解，但大多数人对人类视觉感知、眼球运动的计划和执行以及视觉设计如何与这些过程相互作用的理解非常有限。部分问题是，没有经验验证的应用视觉搜索的综合理论已经发展。视觉搜索在认知心理学和人为因素中得到了严格的研究，但通常是一次只研究一种现象；这导致理论脱节，与设计指南脱节，并不能提供多少实际指导。对于人们如何在网页和计算机软件中搜索视觉布局，目前还没有形成足够完善的综合理论来提供有用的解释或预测。在这个项目中，PI将开发一个基于生态有效场景的视觉搜索预测理论。综合理论将识别视觉-知觉、认知、语义和眼动加工之间的相互作用，在视觉搜索真实的计算机屏幕布局。该理论将体现在一个计算认知模型中，并整合视觉交互中使用的核心过程。PI将把这个理论编译成SimFind，一个模拟人类视觉的“查找”命令。SimFind将对触发搜索时发生的基本人工处理进行建模和显示。这将是一个独立的软件模块，但可以集成到现有的预测工具中，在更大的人类模拟中提供准确而强大的人类“发现”。该模块将实现视觉搜索的基本处理、组件和行为。该模块将提供分析预测，以及可视化，人机视觉交互-看似不可见的过程，引导用户的注意力在布局。PI将通过包括眼球追踪在内的实证研究来评估和完善模拟视觉搜索背后的理论。经验数据将评估该理论如何准确地捕捉由布局结构激发的认知策略，以及在搜索过程中遇到的结构、视觉特征和内容所引起的注意力转移。更广泛的影响：该跨学科项目将综合心理学理论和工程模型，为研究界提供先进的综合理论，并为商业世界提供高度实际的应用。该项目将阐明在视觉交互过程中发生的其他不可见的过程，并将对视觉界面设计师，设计学生，人为因素研究人员和认知心理学家有用。它将说明和预测人类在搜索网站、在线投票和人口普查表格以及通用人机视觉布局方面的行为。

For most computer users, the visual display provides the highest bandwidth of information throughput. However, the full potential of the visual display is often not achieved. Visual layouts are often poorly designed, minimally evaluated, and based primarily on the intuitions and introspection of the designer. Though some visual interface designers have developed a good sense for what works, most have a very limited understanding of human visual perception, the planning and execution of eye movements, and how visual design interacts with those processes. Part of the problem is that no empirically validated comprehensive theories of applied visual search have been developed. Visual search is rigorously studied in cognitive psychology and human factors, but typically one phenomena at a time; this leads to theories that are disjoint, disconnected from design guidelines, and that do not provide much practical guidance. No integrative theories are sufficiently well formed to provide useful explanations or predictions of how people search the visual layouts in web pages and computer software.In this project, the PI will develop a predictive theory of visual search based on ecologically valid scenarios. The comprehensive theory will identify the interaction among visual-perceptual, cognitive, semantic, and oculo-motor processing during visual search of realistic computer screen layouts. The theory will be embodied in a computational cognitive model and integrate the core processes used in visual interaction. The PI will compile the theory into SimFind, a simulated human visual "find" command. SimFind will model and display the fundamental human processing that occurs when a search is triggered. This will be a software module that will stand alone, but which could be integrated into existing predictive tools to provide an accurate and robust human "find" within a larger human simulation. The module will implement the processing, components, and behaviors that are fundamental to visual search. The module will provide analytical predictions, as well as visualizations, of human-computer visual interaction -- the seemingly invisible processes that direct a user's attention across a layout. The PI will evaluate and refine the theory behind the simulated visual search with empirical studies that will include eye tracking. Empirical data will evaluate how the theory accurately captures the cognitive strategies motivated by the structure of the layout, and the shifts of attention that occur in response to the structure, visual features, and content encountered during the search.Broader Impacts: This interdisciplinary project will synthesize psychological theory and engineering models to provide the research community with advanced integrative theory and the commercial world with a highly practical application. The project will illuminate the otherwise invisible processes that take place during visual interaction, and will be useful to visual interface designers, students of design, human factors researchers, and cognitive psychologists. It will illustrate and predict human behavior for searching web sites, online voting and census forms, and general-purpose human-computer visual layouts.