Optimum apportionment of presentation time in visual display

Abstract

With regard to the better display of visual stimuli, one of the key parameters to match with human short-term memory is the presentation time of the information. We have studied the optimum-apportionment modes of the presentation time of seven Roman alphabet letters sequentially presented to five young males by means of our time-continuous model of short-term memory. These modes are thought to allow for the easiest retention by the short-term memory. The average optimum-apportionment mode, as an average of individual scores of the optimum-apportionment mode, was also obtained. With free-recall experiments using the Roman characters, four constants for the model were determined for the subjects. Then, the theoretical optimum-apportionment modes were calculated using a computer simulation for each subject. With slight modifications of these results, eight types of apportionment modes were obtained. The most efficient mode for the recall of the Roman characters in the free-recall experiment was determined as the optimum-apportionment mode of the individual.