The Relationship Between Difficulty and Performance in Visual Search Tasks
Gabriel Macfee- University of Nebraska Kearney
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Katherine Moen
The purpose of the current study was to examine whether there was a relationship between perceived task difficulty and actual task difficulty. Participants were given instructions for a visual search task, and were asked to rate how well they believed they would perform on the task. They were then told the task would be very hard (easy), and were asked to rate their confidence again. Results revealed that manipulating perceived difficulty impacted perceptions of task difficulty, but did not impact visual search performance. Confidence was impacted by perceived difficulty, but only for the actually easy task.
An interesting study, thank you for presenting it!
Very interesting study! I appreciate the example you provided at the beginning of your presentation about your driving test (glad you passed!). 🙂
Can you provide a bit more detail (e.g., demographics) on your participants? Was the sample mainly college students? Thank you!
I do not have full details on participants at this time as data collection only recently finished. I can say that the sample was entirely drawn from undergraduate psychology students mostly in their 20s but some non-traditional students as well. Please let me know if you have any other questions!