Multiple object tracking with extended occlusions

0568764 - PSÚ 2024 RIV GB eng J - Journal Article
Lukavský, Jiří - Oksama, L. - Děchtěrenko, Filip
Multiple object tracking with extended occlusions.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Roč. 76, č. 9 (2023), s. 2094-2106. ISSN 1747-0218. E-ISSN 1747-0226
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA19-07690S
Institutional support: RVO:68081740
Keywords : visual attention * visual memory * occlusion * multiple object tracking * multiple identity tracking
OECD category: Psychology (including human - machine relations)
Impact factor: 1.7, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17470218221142463

In everyday life, we often view objects through a limited aperture (e.g., soccer players on TV or cars slipping into our blind spot on a busy road), where objects often move out of view and reappear in a different place later. We modelled this situation in a series of multiple object tracking (MOT) experiments, in which we introduced a cover on the edges of the observed area and manipulated its width. This method introduced systematic occlusions, which were longer than those used in previous MOT studies. Experiment 1 (N = 50) showed that tracking under such conditions is possible, although difficult. An item-level analysis confirmed that people made more errors in targets that were covered longer and more often. In Experiment 2 (N = 50), we manipulated the tracking workload and found that the participants were less affected by the cover when the tracking load was low. In Experiment 3 (N = 50), we asked the participants to keep track of the objects’ identities (multiple identity tracking [MIT]). Although MIT is subjectively more demanding, memorising identities improved performance in the most difficult cover conditions. Contrary to previous reports, we also found that even partial occlusions negatively affected tracking.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0340213