On the Importance of Structure in Processing Multi-Element Visual Displays

Abstract

Spatial structure of multi element displays has been consistently ignored by the almost exclusive use of random displays in experimental work. However, diaplays which represent aspects of the real world must not only be inherently structured, but they also imply a hierarchical, rather than serial, mode of processing by their human inspector, who uses this structure in pre-planning or constraining his detailed looking at the displays. An experiment, whose purpose was to test directly the temporal priority in processing display structure, is described. In this experiment, latencies and error rates for SAME-DIFFERENT judgements of display pairs were measured. It was found that displays differing by their structural orientation generated shortest response latencies and least errors and were further independent of exposure duration and of any additional differences between the displays due to the identity or orientation of the elements themselves. These data have been interpreted as strongly supporting the hypothesis regarding the temporal priority in processing structure and its high saliency, thus supporting the notion of a hierarchical processing of multi-element displays. A direct testing of the influence of display structure on the processing of its elements is now required.