ABSTRACT
Surprisingly, given the long history associated with looking out to sea and keeping watch, there has been little research examining the best method of surveying a prescribed area of open water [1]. Visual scanning refers to the use of the visual system to pass information about the outside world to the brain. For lifeguards, it is defined as ‘observing, encoding and making an assessment of the water area that is being surveyed’ [2]. Visual search is a challenging behavioural task [3,4] especially when the target behaviour is rare, as in drowning [5].
