The Effects of an Irrelevant Directional CUE on Human Information Processing

Abstract

This chapter discusses the effects of an irrelevant directional cue on human information processing. A fundamental concern in cognitive psychology and in human factors engineering is to understand the factors that affect the speed of translating information from a display into an appropriate control action. A series of related experiments demonstrate that the location of a stimulus provides an irrelevant directional cue that affects the time required to process the meaning of the stimulus. The reaction time data have revealed that the effect was not because of any simple isomorphic association between ear stimulated and ipsilateral hand. The same command ear stimulated interaction has also occurred for movement time. It is found that movements to the right are faster when the right command is heard in the right ear than when it is heard in the left ear, and, similarly, movements to the left are faster when the left command is heard in the left ear than when it is heard in the right ear. The Simon effect with visual displays is also elaborated in the chapter.