| In time-critical situations, information must be presented in such a way that the decision-making capabilities of the user are maximized. However, as the amount of stimuli increases, the user's ability to respond to those stimuli decreases as the cognitive load increases. In this situation, a user must be able to prioritize the information presented, and respond in a short time yet in an accurate and appropriate manner, to the most important information first. This study examines this issue by assigning, or having subjects assign, terms of urgency to a series of colors or shapes. Subjects are then presented with a series of 4, 8 or 12 slides for a time of 2, 4, or 8 seconds. Each slides presents a single message that is coded with one of the four colors or one of the four shapes, and the subject is asked to recall the urgency of that slide based on the code presented. A simple MANOVA analysis is used to examine the effects of assignment, number of slides, and duration of slide presentation on response accuracy and response time. While results were similar for colors and shapes, shape responses presented slight increases in response times and slight decreases in accuracy, most likely due to the fact that while color is a pre-conscious construct, shape is not, and requires additional cognitive processing to interpret, even at a semantic level. However, they both show that layering information so that multiple pieces communications can be presented with one transmission is an effective method of allowing users to not only focus on the meaning of a message, but also prioritize it and attend to it in a manner appropriate for a particular decision-making environment. |
