Abstraction of information from a complex display

Abstract

Two experiments concerned with simultaneously abstracting information about different dimensions from the same display were carried out. In experiment 1 the subject was briefly shown a complex display containing coloured forms with three values of each dimension. Instead of identifying the individual items in the display (such as red triangle, blue square, etc), the subject was to abstract and report in any order the different dimensional values (e.g. red and blue for colour, and triangle and square for form). The results showed that the accuracy of performance was independent of the way in which two dimensions were combined, whether they were orthogonal, partially correlated, or completely correlated. The results showed that colour and form were processed independently and that the perception of one was not facilitated or interfered with by the presence of the other in the same display. In experiment 2 various numbers of values from each dimension were combined orthogonally within each display. The subject's task was the same as in the previous experiment except that the order of report of the two dimensions was specified for each subject. Suppose the dimension reported first is X, and that reported second is Y. The results showed that the number of X values not only detrimentally affected the accuracy of reporting the X values, it also reduced the accuracy of reporting Y owing to memory impairment. The number of Y values, on the other hand, affected only the report of Y values. The results were discussed in terms of a parallel-processing system which proposes no capacity limitation.