Configural Displays Can Improve Nutrition-Related Decisions: An Application of the Proximity Compatibility Principle

• Published in: Human factors 2005-03, Vol.47 (1), p.121-130
• Main Authors: Marino, Christopher J., Mahan, Robert P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Applied physiology; Applied psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Cohort Studies; Computer Graphics; Data Display; Decision Making; Descriptive labeling; Diet; Ergonomics. Work place. Occupational physiology; Feeding. Feeding behavior; Female; Food Labeling; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human factors research; Human physiology applied to population studies and life conditions. Human ecophysiology; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Mental Processes - physiology; Miscellaneous; Nutrition; Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; Probability; Problem Solving; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time; Space life sciences; Task Performance and Analysis; Vertebrates: anatomy and physiology, studies on body, several organs or systems
• ISSN: 0018-7208; 1547-8181
• DOI: 10.1518/0018720053653758

The nutrition label format currently used by consumers to make dietary-related decisions presents significant information-processing demands for integrationbased decisions; however, those demands were not considered as primary factors when the format was adopted. Labels designed in accordance with known principles of cognitive psychology might enhance the kind of decision making that food labeling was intended to facilitate. Three experiments were designed on the basis of the proximity compatibility principle (PCP) to investigate the relationship between nutrition label format and decision making; the experiments involved two types of integration decisions and one type of filtering decision. Based on the PCP, decision performance was measured to test the overall hypothesis that matched task-display tandems would result in better decision performance than would mismatched tandems. In each experiment, a statistically significant increase in mean decision performance was found when the display design was cognitively matched to the demands of the task. Combined, the results from all three experiments support the general hypothesis that task-display matching is a design principle that may enhance the utility of nutrition labeling in nutrition-related decision making. Actual or potential applications of this research include developing robust display solutions that aid in less effortful assimilation of nutrition-related information for consumers.