The role of temporal sequence learning in guiding visual attention allocation

Models of visual attention allocation suggest that monitoring is driven primarily by proximal cues like bandwidth and value. However, these cues might not always be predictive of the meaningful events an operator is asked to monitor. The aim of the current study is to extend visual sampling models by studying whether sampling can be influenced by more distal cues, like detecting patterns in the monitored signal, when proximal cues, like bandwidth, are not predictive of the meaningful events the operator is asked to monitor. Ten participants completed a task based on Senders' (1964) experiment where operators were asked to monitor a series of four gauges to detect when the gauges traveled into the alarm region. The performance results suggest that participants could successfully adapt to the temporal sequence. However, participants did not show explicit awareness of the sequence, indicating that this type of learning could, in some cases, be implicit. Implications for display design and training are discussed.