An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding why Targets Are Missed During Interactive Searches

Interactive searches involve manipulating objects or physically moving through the environment to either find targets or deem them absent. To date, a limited number of these studies exist because they are very time- and cost-intensive to run. In addition, interactive search has primarily been studied from a

psychological perspective, and ignored the role that the hands and grip play in physically manipulating objects, and also ignored how we navigate the environment when searching. These phenomena have been studied extensively by the members of the supervisory team in Health Sciences and Music. This project will take an interdisciplinary approach and utilize the research and technical expertise of the

supervisory team. Following recent studies of interactive search, the experiments will involve participants searching through a set of shuffled shapes in a "tray". The experiments will be presented virtually (Experiment 1) or physically (Experiments 2 and 3). In Experiment 1, interactive behaviour will

be examined by analysing participants' mouse movements. Experiment 2 will focus upon the errors and associated hand movements made by participants using hand tracking hardware and software. In Experiment 3, participants will search through the trays as they are placed in shelving throughout a room whilst their hand and body movements are monitored. Overall, the experiments conducted will enable

the first systematic examination of interactive search from an interdisciplinary perspective. By adopting techniques used in the different disciplines, previously intractable methodological issues will be tackled, enabling a significant step forward in the field.