The objective of this study was to determine the relative effectiveness of selected target-background coding combinations. Three target codes were: color, number, and enclosed shape. Five types of background were: all white, solid gray, five shades of gray, five pastel hues, and five different patterns. These target-background coding combinations were evaluated under eight different complexity conditions and for five different operator tasks. The major findings in this study were: (1) no significant differences were found in background coding, (2) numeral coding is superior for the “identifying” task, and (3) color coding is superior for the “locating” and “counting” tasks.
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