Designing a test battery for real-world visual search

Designing a test battery for real-world visual search | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Designing a test battery for real-world visual search Charli Sherman, Alasdair Clarke, Anna Hughes This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6810586/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 11 Nov, 2025 Read the published version in Scientific Reports → Version 1 posted 13 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Although much research has investigated the mechanisms of visual search behaviour in laboratory-based computer tasks,there has been relatively little work on whether these results generalise to more naturalistic search tasks. In addition, work onreal-world search has often been carried out by researchers working in very different disciplines, leading to a high degree oftask fragmentation. Here, we detail our development of a ‘naturalistic search task battery’, which aims to provide a suite ofopen-source, reproducible, and standardised real-world search tasks, thus enabling the generation of comparable data acrossmultiple studies and aiding theory and modelling in this area. We show that we can replicate findings from previous searchtasks using Lego, demonstrating set-size effects and differences between search conditions. We also show effects of sceneregularity using a ‘bookcase’ task where participants search for specific books on shelves. Finally, we use a ‘jigsaw’ task and a‘Lego building’ task as examples of more complex real-world search tasks and show how we can use them to consider theeffects of strategies. Finally, we consider whether performance on one task can predict performance on another, and thus towhat extent similar cognitive capabilities underlie diverse ‘real-world’ search tasks. Biological sciences/Psychology/Human behaviour Biological sciences/Neuroscience/Visual system/Object vision Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files 1Canalysisbook.r 2Aanalysisjigsaws.r 3analysiscorrelations.r 1ABanalysislego.r 2Banalysiselephant.r Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 11 Nov, 2025 Read the published version in Scientific Reports → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 31 Jul, 2025 Reviews received at journal 25 Jul, 2025 Reviews received at journal 22 Jul, 2025 Reviews received at journal 13 Jul, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 30 Jun, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 27 Jun, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 25 Jun, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 25 Jun, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 25 Jun, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 25 Jun, 2025 Editor invited by journal 09 Jun, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 06 Jun, 2025 First submitted to journal 06 Jun, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6810586","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":477569234,"identity":"fdaec180-376b-475a-b35e-1189e566f0a8","order_by":0,"name":"Charli Sherman","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Essex","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Charli","middleName":"","lastName":"Sherman","suffix":""},{"id":477569235,"identity":"aa4933e3-e97f-41c3-bcad-3999d359690d","order_by":1,"name":"Alasdair Clarke","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of 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