Feature Search Laboratory Homework
Dr. Robert Goldstone
Psychology Department/ Program in Cognitive Science
Indiana University
- Conduct an experiment to answer the following question: Are you faster to
search for a familiar object among unfamiliar objects, or an unfamiliar object
among familiar objects? For the familiar object, use a normal, right-side
“A.” For the unfamiliar object, use an upside-down “A.”
Use a 4 X 4 array, and give yourself 30 present and 30 absent trials in each
task. The pictures for “A” and upside down “A” can
be selected from the menu of built-in pictures.
Without doing any actual statistics, which search do you find is faster? Give
your response times and accuracies for each task, for “present”
and “absent” judgments.
Describe an explanatory theory that would have predicted your results. You
may want to consider the idea that “novelty” or “familiarity”
may be psychological features.
- Is it easier to search for a “(” target among “)“
distractors, or for a “((“ target among “()” distractors?
Report your average time (across several trials) for both of these tasks.
One might argue that the second task should be harder because the targets
and distractors are more similar to each other - they are the same as the
first task except a shared “(“ has been added to the left of both
targets and distractors. Would this argument explain your results? If not,
what explanation would you give for your results?
- Consider two different search tasks:
Is the top or bottom search more difficult? Report your average time (across
several trials) for both tasks. Is this result explained by a theory that
says “triangles are composed entirely of three features: horizontal,
vertical, and diagonal lines.” If this theory does not explain the difficulties
of the two tasks, what extra feature should be added to the description of
the triangle, and how would hypothesizing this feature explain your results?