This research was an investigation of how global processing of visual stimuli affect the speed and accuracy of map symbol perception in a search and locate task. It addresses the role of symbol structure in detection on maps, which is critical for prescribing how symbols should be designed and used. Symbols were scaled according to global and local features, and then detected as targets against a realistic map background. Globally and locally similar symbols were most distracting to each other as measured by response time, but not so for accuracy. The importance of local features for this type of task was the most critical finding.
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