Eye Movements Reveal Satisfaction of Search Effects in Proofreading.

Subsequent search misses (SSMs) are a type of multiple-target search error in which the discovery of one target reduces the detectability of another target (Cain, Adamo, Mitroff, 2013). SSMs are a major source of errors in radiology, but also occur in non-medical tasks (Fleck, Samei, & Mitroff, 2010), such as baggage scans. To further assess the generalizability of SSMs, we used eye tracking to examine SSMs in proofreading for the first time. To understand the source of these errors, we contrasted the perspective that the discovery of an initial typo results in a less thorough search for additional typos (i.e., the "satisfaction of search" (SOS) account) with the alternative perspective that the discovery of an initial typo consumes working memory resources that otherwise could have aided in the subsequent search (i.e., the "cognitive resource depletion" account). Across two studies, we monitored eye movements while participants either proofread for typos in paragraphs (Experiment 1) or proofread lists of words that were arranged in a straight line or scrambled in random locations across the screen (Experiment 2). We document an SSM effect where detection of a high-salience typo (easy-to-detect; e.g., "carpeb" instead of "carpet") reduced the detectability of a low-salience typo (difficult-to-detect; e.g., "mitsake" instead of "mistake"). Moreover, in support of the SOS account, the detection of the high-salience typo resulted in a less thorough search, as revealed by shorter reaction times, as well as shorter fixation times and fewer refixations on the low-salience target word. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]