Re-Examination of Meaningfulness in Luminous Design Phenomena

Abstract

Previous studies concerning the influence of stimulus meaningfulness on perceptual stability have yielded conflicting data owing to both equivocal definitions of meaningfulness and uncontrolled variations in stimuli. In this study, increasing degrees of stimulus meaningfulness were defined in terms of a corresponding increase in the number of perceptual modalities with which Ss had access to an otherwise invariant stimulus. The stimulus was a luminous 25¢ coin presented in a dark room, and associated with one of three degrees of meaningfulness. 3 groups of male and female undergraduates, assigned meaningfulness conditions, depressed a key at the occasions and for the durations of stimulus fragmentation. Frequency and duration measures of fragmentation indicated that stimulus meaningfulness increases perceptual stability, and these findings clarify some aspects of previous reports.