ArticleCognitive research: principles and implications2023
Graded prioritisation of targets in search: reward diminishes the low prevalence effect.
Article in Cognitive research: principles and implications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 2 citations in OpenAlex.
- The influence of visibility and prevalence rate on visual search.Journal of vision · 2026Article
- Intrinsic motivation and false feedback reduce the low prevalence effect.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2025Article
- Reducing the low prevalence effect: Does similarity search translate to binary decisions?Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In many real-life contexts, observers are required to search for targets that are rarely present (e.g. tumours in X-rays; dangerous items in airport security screenings). Despite the rarity of these items, they are of enormous importance for the health and safety of the public, yet they are easily missed during visual search. This is referred to as the prevalence effect. In the current series of experiments, we investigate whether unequal reward can modulate the prevalence effect, in a multiple target search task. Having first established the impact of prevalence (Experiment 1) and reward (Experiment 2) on how efficiently participants can find one of several targets in the current paradigm, we then combined the two forms of priority to investigate their interaction. An unequal reward distribution (where lower prevalence items are more rewarded; Experiment 3) was found to diminish the effect of prevalence, compared to an equal reward distribution (Experiment 4) as indicated by faster response times and fewer misses. These findings suggest that when combined with an unequal reward distribution, the low prevalence effect can be diminished.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.