Abstract
In daily life, huge costs can arise from just one incorrect performance on a visual search task (e.g., a fatal accident due to a driver overlooking a pedestrian). One potential way to prevent such drastic accidents would be for people to modify their decision criterion (e.g., placing a greater priority on accuracy rather than speed) during a visual search. The aim of the present study was to manipulate the criterion by creating an awareness of being watched by another person. During a visual search task, study participants were watched (or not watched) via video cameras and monitors. The results showed that, when they believed they were being watched by another person, they searched more slowly and accurately, as measured by reaction times and hit/miss rates. These findings also were obtained when participants were videotaped and they believed their recorded behavior would be watched by another person in the future. The study primarily demonstrated the role of being watched by another on the modulation of the decision criterion for responding during visual searches.
Highlights
In daily life, huge costs can arise from just one failing performance during what is essentially a visual search task
To confirm that outliers did not cause the differences in reaction times (RT), the statistical analyses were repeated using the trimmed means of RTs
The results indicated that the participants searched more slowly and accurately when they thought they were being watched by another person, supporting the second hypothesis: the participants prioritized accuracy
Summary
Huge costs can arise from just one failing performance during what is essentially a visual search task (e.g., a fatal accident due to a driver overlooking a pedestrian, or an airline hijacking resulting from overlooking dangerous materials during baggage screening). A potential way to prevent such drastic costs would be to shift the decision criterion during the visual search. In the car driving situation, for example, the potential for an accident could be decreased by making a slower, more careful search in favor of speed or quickness. The principal aim of the present study was to manipulate the decision criterion for responding during visual searches by creating an awareness of being watched by another person. It has been reported that an awareness (or subawareness) of being watched (or observed: e.g., [16]) affects the perceiver’s criteria for a making decisions regarding cooperative or prosocial behavior [17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28]
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