Another test of sensor lines on control panels

In this experiment all panels had four circular displays arranged in a square on a vertical surface and four controls aligned vertically to the right of the displays. Two panels had linkages between controls and displays which earlier research had shown to be compatible, the other two had incompatible linkages. Each of these four panels was tested with and without sensor lines showing the linkages between controls and displays. Ninety-six subjects each made 128 trials on one of the eight panels. A subject's task was to respond as quickly as possible by pushing the correct control to extinguish a light when it appeared in one of the displays. Sensor lines had no effect on performance with the compatible panels but impaired performance on the incompatible panels. The results also confirm again the potency of the compatibility principle: responses were faster and fewer errors were made when using the compatible panels.