Although visual search studies have primarily focused on search behavior, concealment behavior is also important in the real world. However, previous studies in this regard are limited in that their findings about search and concealment strategies are restricted to the spatial (two-dimensional) domain. Thus, this study evaluated strategies during three-dimensional and temporal (i.e., spatiotemporal) search and concealment to determine whether participants would indicate where they would hide or find a target in a temporal sequence of items. The items were stacked in an upward (Experiments 1–3) or downward (Experiment 4) direction and three factors were manipulated: scenario (hide vs. seek), partner type (friend vs. foe), and oddball (unique item in the sequence; present vs. absent). Participants in both the hide and seek scenarios frequently selected the oddball for friends but not foes, which suggests that they applied common strategies because the oddball automatically attracts attention and can be readily discovered by friends. Additionally, a principle unique to the spatiotemporal domain was revealed, i.e., when the oddball was absent, participants in both scenarios frequently selected the topmost item of the stacked layer for friends, regardless of temporal order, whereas they selected the first item in the sequence for foes, regardless of the stacked direction. These principles were not affected by visual masking or number of items in the sequence. Taken together, these results suggest that finding and hiding positions in the spatiotemporal domain rely on the presence of salient items and physical accessibility or temporal remoteness, according to partner type.

中文翻译：

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时空域中的搜索和隐藏策略。

尽管视觉搜索研究主要集中在搜索行为上，但隐藏行为在现实世界中也很重要。但是，这方面的先前研究受到限制，因为他们有关搜索和隐藏策略的发现仅限于空间（二维）域。因此，本研究评估了在三维和时间（即时空）搜索和隐藏过程中的策略，以确定参与者是否会指示他们将在项目的时间序列中隐藏或找到目标的位置。这些物品以向上（实验1–3）或向下（实验4）的方向堆叠，并且操纵了三个因素：情景（隐藏vs.寻求），伙伴类型（朋友与敌人）和奇数球（顺序；当前与不存在）。捉迷藏场景中的参与者经常选择陌生球作为朋友，而不是敌人，这表明他们采用了共同的策略，因为陌生球会自动吸引注意力并且很容易被朋友发现。另外，揭示了时空域的唯一原理，即，当没有奇数球时，两种情况下的参与者都经常为朋友选择堆叠层的最顶层项目，而不考虑时间顺序，而他们选择序列中的第一项对于敌人，无论堆叠方向如何。这些原则不受视觉遮罩或序列中项目数量的影响。在一起