This report presents an extension to the domain definition language for Threaded Forward-chaining Partial Order Planner (TFPOP) that can be used to increase the understandability of domain models. The extension consists of composite actions which is a method for expressing abstract actions as procedures of primitive actions. TFPOP can then uses these abstract actions when searching for a plan. An experiment, with students as participants, was used to show that using composite action can increase the understandability for non-expert users. Moreover, it was also proved the planner can utilize the composite action to significantly decrease the search time. Furthermore, indications was found that using composite actions is equally fast in terms of search time as using existing equivalent methods to decrease the search time.

When searching for an object, we store a mental representation of the target, which guides our search through the use of attention. The effectiveness of this search guidance varies depending on the task and the relationship between target and distractors. With a better understanding of how search guidance changes over time within a trial, we can better compare the differences between experimental conditions. Eye tracking data from a variety of search tasks were analyzed to determine how color guidance varied over the course of the trial. Color guidance for a given fixation was evaluated based on the distance in color space between the nearest object and the target color. These color differences were averaged over all of the trials and plotted based on when the fixation occurred in the trial. The results indicate that color guidance does not begin working at maximum effectiveness immediately. As the trial progresses, the average color difference decreases. After this initial decrease, if the target is not present, guidance becomes less selective and target dissimilar distractors are increasingly fixated. The color distance graphs were compared between experiments to reveal significant differences arising from the experimental conditions.