Speed and Reliability of Touch vs Mouse Inputs in Visual Foraging

Abstract

Traditional visual attention research predominantly employs a visual search paradigm focused on identifying a single target within a scene. This approach, however, may not fully encapsulate the complexities of natural environmental interactions, which often involve multiple decisions and actions. Addressing this gap, recent advancements have introduced touch-screen-based foraging tasks, where participants are required to identify and cancel multiple targets through tactile interaction. Despite its intuitive appeal, the widespread adoption of this methodology has been limited. This article explores the computer mouse as a viable alternative for target cancellation in such foraging tasks. We conducted an experiment comparing search performance between touch and mouse inputs in a visual foraging task, requiring participants to locate and interact with a known target multiple times under various search types. Our findings indicate that while mouse responses are marginally slower, the variance in response times is consistent across both input modalities. Contrary to expectations, we observed no significant disadvantages when employing the mouse as opposed to touch screens. The results suggest that the computer mouse is a competent and underutilized tool in visual attention research, offering a comparable and effective alternative to touch-based devices for complex search tasks.

Keywords

• visual foraging
• attention
• input modalities
• input methods
• response times
• reliability