ASSESSING SEARCH PERFORMANCE WITH A SIMULATION-MODEL

A computer simulation model for visual search is described in general terms. The model has many parameters but the simulation is basically a bout visual lobe area and search strategy, in the simulation model, th e visual lobe area may be defined in different ways and a variety of s hapes may be used. Search strategies may be random or systematic with varying amount of lobe overlap possible, or purely random. Using exper imental search performance data for 30 subjects with known visual lobe sizes the simulation model produced results close to actual performan ce. For 20 of the subjects the model showed that they probably used a strategy somewhere between random and random with some lobe overlap, i ndicating a moderate degree of memory and a rough idea of lobe area. R esults for the remaining subjects could be simulated by using a less e fficient strategy in terms of lobe overlap. (C) 1998 John Wiley Br Son s, Inc.