Assignment task:
At first, she struggles with the task. She cannot figure out whether tumors are the darker spots or the lighter spots? She is unsure whether she should be looking for curved lines or straight lines. She is unsure of what shape tumors usual are. What areas of the brain should she be looking at? However, over time she starts seeing consistencies in the images of tumors that make her more accurate and faster at the task.
After becoming more experienced with the task, she receives a written performance evaluation. She was told that she is still too slow compared to the more experienced radiological staff. Jane wants to consider what factors contribute to her difference in performance while looking for tumors. She turns to Feature-Integration theory for some answers.
Task: Use the concepts and terminology from Chapter 3's sections on attentional mechanisms & theories to answer the following questions.
This is clearly a visual search task. Write a response in paragraph format that would help Jane answer each of the following questions:
Consider Feature-integration theory and describe what is occurring at each processing stage of the model as she is looking for tumors. The following question should also be answered in your paragraph:
What makes her search task cognitively challenging? Need Assignment Help?
Hint: Look at the example of the x-ray image above. Notice the amount of visual information provided. Relate this back to the feature-integration model's stages.
Based on the information from this chapter, do you predict she would be faster at detecting when a tumor is there or when a tumor is not there? Why?