Multiple object tracking

As we navigate the visual world, many tasks actively require us to monitor multiple objects
simultaneously. When driving, we must avoid incoming cars and walking pedestrians. When
playing sports, we must track our teammates and distinguish them from our opponents. One way
to explore the mechanisms underlying object tracking and our capacity to track objects is to test
the limits of this skill (Cavanagh & Alvarez, 2005; Pylyshyn & Storm, 1988). Are there limits to
how fast objects can move, how many objects we are tracking, or for how long we can sustain
our attention on these moving objects?

Preliminary research so far

This past year, I conducted a study in the Cresap Laboratory at Northwestern University under
the guidance of Dr. Steven Franconeri. I created an experiment where participants tracked a set
of six target circles moving among six identical distractor circles (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Sample display. Subjects are cued to track 6 objects throughout the experiment.

Past studies using similar displays have

shown that performance decreases when
objects move faster (Alvarez & Franconeri
2007). My study tested the counter-intuitive
prediction that object speed does not
actually limit our capacity to track multiple
objects. One confounding factor that
typically accompanies speed is an increase
in the number of times that objects pass
nearby one another, creating possible
confusion among objects as they become
‘crowded’ (Franconeri et al. 2008;
Makovski & Jiang, 2008).

To minimize this confound, I used large Figure 2: Accuracy as a function of object speed
inter-object distances, so that pairs of target and and tracking time.
distractor objects were kept far from each other.
Under these conditions, faster object speed did not impair tracking ability. In fact, when the
object speed increased as much as a factor of 3, there was no performance drop with object
tracking. Only the total distance traveled by each object predicted whether it was successfully
tracked (see Figure 2).
My data suggests that performance is only a function of distance traveled, and not speed or time
alone. When the objects moved slowly for a short amount of time (leftmost bar), mean
performance was high. When the objects moved quickly for a long amount of time (rightmost
bar), performance dropped. However, in conditions where distance was identical, but speed and
time were varied, there was no significant difference in performance.

Proposed research for Summer 2009 and beyond

In order to provide further evidence

for this surprising relationship
between object distance and tracking
accuracy, more data is needed. The
equal performance between the two
conditions of equal distance might
be a coincidence. This summer, I
plan to add more speed and time
combinations to verify if this
dependency exists (see Figure 3).
Regardless of what speed and time
combination is used, I expect that
performance will not change as long
as the total distance traveled remains
the same.
Figure 3: Predicted data.
This data will provide critical
evidence for the distance dependency of object tracking. With access to more data, I will also
explore the underlying cause of this dependence. A strong possibility is that the ‘crowding’
effect was minimized, but not eliminated, in my pilot experiment. I will analyze the effect of
crowding on performance for each object tracked in the display. That is, are targets more
accurately tracked when other objects happened to stay farther away from it? If so, then this
relationship might explain why total distance affects accuracy: as the total distance traveled by
each object increases, there is a greater probability that the object becomes crowded by another.

This alternative explanation for the capacity limits on tracking would have striking implications
for the field of object tracking. If tracking is actually only limited by crowding, and if these inter-
object dependencies could be controlled, then we may be able to track a large number of objects
at a virtually unlimited high speed.

Beyond this summer, my continued work on this project would involve identifying the precise
factors that do contribute to object tracking performance at high speeds, and creating an object
tracking display where observers would be capable of tracking many objects at high speeds for a
surprisingly amount of time. These kinds of analyses would provide insight to the limitations of
our ability to maintain attention on moving objects in the world.
References

Alvarez, G. A., & Franconeri, S. L. (2007). How many objects can you track? Evidence for a
resource-limited attentive tracking mechanism. Journal of Vision, 7(13): 14, 1-10.

Cavanagh, P., & Alvarez, G. A. (2005). Tracking multiple targets with multifocal attention.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 349-354.

Franconeri, S.L., Fisher, B., Lin, J.Y., Pylyshyn, Z. W., & Enns, J. T. (2008). Evidence against a
speed limit in multiple-object tracking. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15 (4), 802-808

Makovski, T., & Jiang, Y.V. (2008). Proactive interference from items previously stred in visual
working memory. Memory & Cognition, 36(1), 43-52.

Pylyshyn, Z. W., & Storm, R. W. (1988). Tracking multiple independent targets: Evidence for a
parallel tracking mechanism. Spatial Vision, 3, 179-197.