SEARCH TIME FOR ALPHA-NUMERIC STIMULI

Five experiments were conducted to study the recognition of alpha-numeric stimuli. The stimuli were 2-6 consonant or digit combinations which varied in length (i.e., number of consonants or digits per stimulus) and uncertainty (number of alternatives from which the consonants or digits were selected...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Grace,Madge M, Warhurst,Frank, Murdock,Bennet B ,Jr
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
ACUITY
CODING
ERRORS
PATTERN RECOGNITION
PERCEPTION
STIMULATION(PHYSIOLOGY)
THRESHOLDS(PHYSIOLOGY)
TIME
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Summary:Five experiments were conducted to study the recognition of alpha-numeric stimuli. The stimuli were 2-6 consonant or digit combinations which varied in length (i.e., number of consonants or digits per stimulus) and uncertainty (number of alternatives from which the consonants or digits were selected). There were two different tasks; in one task S had to find the one pair of identical stimuli in a square matrix, while in the other task S had to find one particular stimulus in a square matrix. In general search time increased with the total amount of information conveyed by the stimulus, but message length seemed to be a more important variable than uncertainty. It was suggested that, with alpha-numeric coding, the most rapid performance would probably occur with minimum length and maximum uncertainty. An apparent discrepancy between the present results and those of a prior experiment (in which recognition had been measured by accuracy) was discussed, and the findings were also related to recent studies of perceptual recognition thresholds. (Author)