Conspicuity in realistic scenes: an eye-movement measure.

An experiment is described to measure the distracting effects of advertisements on the conspicuity of routing signs in realistic scenes. Slides of railway station scenes were shown in which subjects had to search for a target word used in a routing sign present in the scene. Eye movements were recorded to determine search time and number of fixations during search time. Both search time and number of fixations increased systematically with the number of advertisements in two of the three experimental scenes. The distribution of fixations over the scenes is discussed.

[1]  L. Whitaker,et al.  Verbal Response Times to Directional Traffic Signs Embedded in Photographic Street Scenes , 1984, Human factors.

[2]  B. Cole,et al.  The effect of the density of background elements on the conspicuity of objects , 1982, Vision Research.

[3]  P. K. Hughes,et al.  A Field Trial of Attention and Search Conspicuity , 1984 .

[4]  Charles J. Holahan,et al.  Effects of Visual Distraction on Reaction Time in a Simulated Traffic Environment , 1978 .

[5]  Donald A. Gordon.  The Assessment of Guide Sign Informational Load , 1981 .

[6]  Robert E. Dewar,et al.  EVALUATION OF ROADWAY GUIDE SIGNS AT A LARGE AIRPORT , 1977 .

[7]  A. Treisman,et al.  A feature-integration theory of attention , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[8]  L. G. Williams,et al.  The effect of target specification on objects fixated during visual search , 1966 .

[9]  S. Smith,et al.  Color coding and visual search. , 1962, Journal of experimental psychology.

[10]  B. Green,et al.  Color coding in a visual search task. , 1956, Journal of experimental psychology.

[11]  T Boersema,et al.  The influence of advertisements on the conspicuity of routing information. , 1985, Applied ergonomics.

[12]  R. Dewar,et al.  Reaction Time as an Index of Traffic Sign Perception , 1976, Human factors.

[13]  R. Meddis.  Statistics Using Ranks: A Unified Approach , 1984 .

[14]  B. Cole,et al.  The effect of variability of background elements on the conspicuity of objects , 1984, Vision Research.

[15]  H. Egeth,et al.  Perceptual selectivity is task dependent: The pop-out effect poops out , 1979, Perception & psychophysics.