Despite the increasing focus on target prevalence in visual search research, few papers have thoroughly examined the effect of how target prevalence is communicated. Findings in the judgment and decision-making literature have demonstrated that people behave differently depending on whether probabilistic information is made explicit or learned through experience, hence there is potential for a similar difference when communicating prevalence in visual search. Our current research examined how visual search changes depending on whether the target prevalence information was explicitly given to observers or they learned the prevalence through experience with additional manipulations of target reward and salience. We found that when the target prevalence was low, learning prevalence from experience resulted in more target-present responses and longer search times before quitting compared to when observers were explicitly informed of the target probability. The discrepancy narrowed with increased prevalence and reversed in the high target prevalence condition. Eye-tracking results indicated that search with experience consistently resulted in longer fixation durations, with the largest difference in low-prevalence conditions. Longer search time was primarily due to observers re-visited more items. Our work addressed the importance of exploring influences brought by probability communication in future prevalence visual search studies.

尽管视觉搜索研究越来越关注目标流行率，但很少有论文彻底研究了如何传播目标流行率的影响。判断和决策文献中的发现表明，人们根据概率信息是显式的还是通过经验学习的，行为会有所不同，因此，在视觉搜索中交流患病率时，存在类似的差异。我们当前的研究检查了视觉搜索如何变化，这取决于是否将目标患病率信息明确地提供给了观察者，或者他们是通过对目标奖励和显着性进行其他操作而从经验中学到的。我们发现，当目标患病率较低时，与向观察者明确告知目标概率的情况相比，从经验中学习的普遍性导致更多的目标对象响应和更长的退出前搜索时间。差异随着患病率的增加而缩小，并在高目标患病率条件下逆转。眼动结果表明，有经验的搜索始终会导致更长的注视持续时间，而在低患病率条件下差异最大。搜索时间较长的主要原因是观察者重新访问了更多物品。我们的工作解决了在未来的流行视觉搜索研究中探索由概率交流带来的影响的重要性。差异随着患病率的增加而缩小，并在高目标患病率条件下逆转。眼动追踪结果表明，有经验的搜索始终会导致更长的注视持续时间，而在低患病情况下差异最大。搜索时间较长的主要原因是观察者重新访问了更多物品。我们的工作解决了在未来的流行视觉搜索研究中探索由概率交流带来的影响的重要性。差异随着患病率的增加而缩小，并在高目标患病率条件下逆转。眼动结果表明，有经验的搜索始终会导致更长的注视持续时间，而在低患病率条件下差异最大。搜索时间较长的主要原因是观察者重新访问了更多物品。我们的工作解决了在未来的流行视觉搜索研究中探索由概率交流带来的影响的重要性。