Publications

Incidental findings defined as valuable findings that are not searched purposely by the experts were originally discovered by radiologists. Despite the importance and great practical value of this phenomenon for visual search, it was almost not studied by cognitive psychologists and vision science experts. The current study aimed to examine experimentally incidental findings in visual search. The main objective was to clarify independence of incidental findings from subsequent search misses, another well-known visual search phenomenon. In order to do that, the standard experimental paradigm for detecting subsequent search misses was used. At the same time the stimuli material and tasks were created to closely fit the definition of incidental findings. The findings revealed that subsequent search misses, but not incidental findings were observed. The results suggest that incidental findings may be closely related to subsequent search misses. As well as that, the difficulty of the task, particularly, induced by target-distractor similarity, may be one of the major factors, leading to the emergence of subsequent search misses instead of incidental findings.

Subsequent search misses (SSM) refer to the decrease in accuracy of second target detection in dual-target visual search. One of the theoretical explanations of SSM errors is similarity bias – the tendency to search for similar targets and to miss the dissimilar ones. The current study focuses on both perceptual and categorical similarity and their individual roles in SSM. Five experiments investigated the role of perceptual and categorical similarity in subsequent search misses, wherein perceptual and categorical similarities were manipulated separately, and task relevance was controlled. The role of both perceptual and categorical similarity was revealed, however, the categorical similarity had greater impact on second target detection. The findings of this research suggest the revision of the traditional perceptual set hypothesis that mainly focuses on perceptual target similarity in multiple target visual search.

The disfluency effect was recently discovered, according to which it is possible to improve memorization by making fonts less legible. In a number of studies, the existence of this effect has been discussed, and the question about the possible existence of moderators for this effect has also been raised. In this paper, the presence of images accompanying text information was considered as a moderator for the disfluency effect. 40 words were shown to study participants; depending upon the experimental group, the presented words were written in either a fluent or disfluent font, and accompanied by images or not. A significant improvement in memory was found in the presence of images, but the disfluency effect was not detected, and the presence of images did not moderate this effect.

Recently, the idea of beneficial effect of perceptually disfluent, poorly legible fonts on memory has been actively discussed. Among the explanations for the positive effect is the "desirable difficulties" approach, according to which the disfluent fonts affect metacognitive processes while reading. Such interruption is thought to promote better information processing compared to ordinary, fluent fonts. In accordance with this approach, a special, initially disfluent font Sans Forgetica was designed in 2018 to improve memorization of texts. Existing studies still debate on the strength of the disfluency effect or even on its existence. For example, according to the cognitive load theory it is better to apply fluent, easy-to-read fonts. In order to examine this issue, we conducted a study, which involved 69 participants. Participants were presented with a short text in English with 15 open questions afterwards. Four experimental groups were formed based on the specific font: Times New Roman, Arial, Comic Sans or Sans Forgetica. Given the non-native English speakers as participants, the level of English proficiency was considered as an additional independent variable. We hypothesized that the participants from the third and fourth groups would score higher in the memorization test, since the text presented to them was written in disfluent fonts. Furthermore, it was planned to study whether the degree of English proficiency would affect the success of solving the problem when using different fonts. No significant differences were found between the participants with different level of English proficiency and the type of font. In particular, the Sans Forgetica font has not proven to be more effective for storing information. This result is consistent with recent studies that failed to observe the disfluency effect.

Background: Subcultures often develop distinct fashion style, which eventually becomes their “trademark” and represents the culture. In post-soviet countries, “gopniks” are one of the most prominent subcultures that is also present in popular media. Nevertheless, it is unknown to which extent the established image of “gopniks” in common knowledge can influence low-level perceptual processes such as search asymmetry. Objective: Our aim was to examine the influence of specific features of “gopnik” image on visual search. Design: We conducted two experiments to investigate familiarity and threatening of the “gopnik” features. In experiment 1, participants had to find a man-like stimuli in two conditions: a man-like silhouette with vertical stripes on his trousers among similar figures, but with horizontal stripes and vice versa. In experiment 2, participants had to search for the same stripes pattern only (but without man-like silhouette). Conditions were the same as in the first experiment. The experiment 3 was conducted in order to replicate results from previous two experiments with better control. Results: Overall, our results demonstrated visual search asymmetry for man-like (with horizontal stripes on trousers) and gopnik-like (with vertical stripes on trousers) objects, which could not be explained by the basic feature differences of these stimuli. Conclusion: We suggest that nowadays in Russia “gopniks” are perceived as a familiar group rather than dangerous subculture with real power. Their image was successfully transmitted to the general cultural background for post-soviet communities

Three experiments investigated the role of target-target perceptual similarity within the attentional blink (AB). Various geometric shapes were presented in a rapid serial visual presentation task. Targets could have 2, 1 or 0 shared features. Features included shape and size. The second target was presented after five or six different lags after the first target. The task was to detect both targets on each trial. Second target report accuracy was increased by target-target similarity. This modulation was observed more for mixed trials design as compared to blocked design. Results are discussed in terms of increased stability of working memory representations and reduced interference for second target processing.

Subsequent search misses refer to the decrease in accuracy of second target detection in dual-target visual search. One of the theoretical explanations of SSM errors is similarity bias – the tendency to search for similar targets and to miss the dissimilar ones. The current study focuses on both perceptual and categorical similarity and their individual roles in SSM. Three experiments investigated the role of perceptual and categorical similarity in subsequent search misses, wherein perceptual and categorical similarity were manipulated separately, and task relevance was controlled. The role of both perceptual and categorical similarity was revealed, however, the categorical similarity had greater impact on second target detection.

Perceptual load theory claims that the processing of task-irrelevant information can be predicted by the level of perceptual load. If a particular task places a high demand on attention, taskirrelevant stimuli processing can be prevented. That means that in a high-load condition the subjects are more likely to ignore distractors, while in a low-load condition, task-relevant information and task-irrelevant information are processed simultaneously. Although several studies showed that perceptual load can play a crucial role in inattentional blindness, there is a lack of applied research conducted using real-life tasks. This study implemented a real-life task to describe the effect perceptual load has on banner blindness, which has common grounds with inattentional blindness. Banner blindness is a phenomenon in usability studies which shows that subjects do not notice webpage banners despite their saliency. The study represents an important application of load theory to the realworld behavior of internet users. Participants were divided into low-load and high-load groups (which differed in number of stimuli presented) and asked to find items on a shopping website. In the critical trial, a banner appeared. The subjects under the high-load condition were expected to notice the banner less often, than under the low-load condition. The hypothesis was not supported. However, a tendency towards more reports about the banner’s presence can be seen in the low-load group. We assume that if there are enough people who noticed the banner, we will be able to detect the effect of cognitive load on banner blindness

The study investigated the role of perceptual characteristics and the familiarity factor in the detection of a stimulus in visual search of interface elements. The “share” icons such as “Three dots” and “Outgoing tray” were used as the most used and most controversial among design practitioners. In the course of the quasi-experiment, users of various platforms (Android and iOS) had to search for a target stimulus (one or two) among distractors. The reaction time and the accuracy of finding the target stimuli were recorded. The influence of familiarity of the stimulus on the efficiency of solving the problem of visual search was found, consistent with the effects from previous studies. The results obtained are discussed in the context of the feature integration theory and the Gestalt theory of perception. The prospects for furtherresearch and the area of ​​practical application of the results are outlined.

Bishop Berkeley suggested that the distance of an object can be estimated if the object’s size is familiar to the observer. The distance can be computed by comparing the size of the retinal image of the object to the memorized size of the object. It has been suggested that humans can perceive the distance of the object by using such “familiarity” information. However, prior experiments looking for an effect of familiarity had not been designed to minimize, or eliminate potential influences of: (i) higher cognitive factors on the observers' responses, or (ii) the influences of low-level image features in the visual stimuli. We tested the familiarity effect in two psychophysical experiments that were conducted both in Russia and in Japan. Forty Russian students and forty Japanese students participated in these experiments. The visual stimuli used were images of three coins in Russia and in Japan. The participants' depth perception was measured with a multiple-choice task testing the perceived depth-order of the coins. Our expectation was that any effect of “familiarity” on depth perception would only be observed with the coins of the participant's country. We expected a substantial effect of familiarity based on our meta-analysis of the "familiarity" effects observed in prior experiments. But, our results in both experiments showed that the familiarity effect on depth perception was virtually zero. Our experiments clearly show that familiarity, studied for the first time without any obvious confounds, does not serve as a cue for depth.

The experiment involved dual-target rapid serial visual presentation task in which 15 stimuli were displayed within each trial. The time of presentation for one stimulus was 90 milliseconds; interstimulus interval was 10 milliseconds. Shape and size of stimuli were varied. Targets could have two, one, or no shared features. There were three colors: green for distractors, yellow for first target stimulus, and blue for second target stimulus. The second target was presented on five different lags after first target. Participants task was to detect both targets on each trial. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed the significant impact of the lag factor and the number of shared features factor. Attentional blink was observed only for no shared features condition. The perceptual set created by the first target reduces the interference in working memory and prevents the second target omission for the conditions with one and two shared features.