The effects of task criticality and target modality on a simulated battlefield search task

Abstract

ABSTRACTWarfighters often rely on lengthy, lexical object descriptions when performing search tasks in critical environments. Several theoretical frameworks, including the Pictorial Superiority Effect, posit images to be more effective forms of instruction for short-term memory recall tasks. However, it is unclear whether pictures are superior forms of object description when the search task has serious consequences. The purpose of the current work was to determine whether pictorial or lexical descriptions are more effective forms of instruction for military search tasks of varying criticalities. Twenty participants with military deployment experience and 20 students with no deployment experience navigated a virtual marketplace environment to search for pictorially and lexically described targets. Participants searched for targets under conditions of both low and high task criticality. Mixed analyses of variance showed that both samples collected more pictorially described targets in the high criticality condition than in the low criticality condition. Participants collected pictorially described targets faster than lexical targets, and military participants took longer to locate lexically described targets in the high criticality condition. These results lend credence to the pictorial superiority effect and may be used to inform design of instructional tools.