A study of information‐presentation rate in a visual and auditory display

Abstract

AbstractThis paper explores the information presentation rate in a visual and auditory display from the viewpoint of multimodal interface and carries out a comparison with that in a visual display or an auditory display. That is, using the time‐continuous model of short‐term memory, the optimum‐apportionment mode of letter presentation time, for which letters are most easily retained in shortterm memory, was determined for four subjects, when six randomly selected alphabet letters are sequentially presented in the same position on the screen and through a headset acoustically. This mode has shown the same tendency as that in a visual display or in an auditory display, but minimum presentation time has been slightly shorter than in the auditory display. the number of recalled letters in the case of presentation under the optimum‐apportionment mode is greater for all subjects than the maximum value of the number of recalled letters on condition that the presentation time of each letter is made equal. Moreover, there is a significant difference between the former and the latter. Accordingly, the effectiveness of the method employed here has been confirmed in the visual and auditory display as well. Furthermore, in the visual and auditory display, the number of recalled letters under the optimum‐apportionment mode was greater than that in the visual display or the auditory display for all subjects. In this case, significant difference was recognized for three subjects in a comparison within the visual display and for two subjects in the comparison within the auditory display.