Visual foraging and individual characteristics: Contribution of executive functions and personality

In foraging tasks in which observers select multiple instances of two target types, they change their strategy according to the task difficulty. During easy feature-based foraging, observers locate the nearest target and often switch between target types, while during difficult conjunction-based foraging they mainly exhaust one entire target type before turning to the second one. Yet, about one third of observers (so-called “super foragers”) continue to locate the nearest target and switch between target types during conjunction foraging, despite the increased task difficulty. Here, we investigated whether these individual differences in foraging strategy were related to differences in individual characteristics, such as executive functioning and personality. We recruited a large sample of 304 participants who underwent an online experiment composed of feature and conjunction foraging tasks, computerized tasks measuring executive functioning (attentional flexibility, inhibitory control and visuospatial working memory), and a questionnaire measuring the Big Five personality traits. The results confirmed the presence of individual differences in foraging behavior, with about one third being super foragers. Moreover, regression analyses revealed that foraging strategy (e.g., target selection order) and performance (e.g., reaction times) were related to executive functioning (in particular attentional flexibility and inhibitory control) and personality (in particular conscientiousness). Altogether, our results on a large sample show, for the first time, that individual cognitive and personality profiles shape foraging strategy and performance, emphasizing the need to consider individual characteristics in visual foraging research.