Time Course of Perceptual Grouping in User Interface Displays

Perceptual grouping describes the organization of small elements into larger objects. Research in user interface (UI) design has demonstrated effects of perceptual grouping on attention and navigation. However, grouping can be mediated by a variety of task factors. One such mediator is processing time. Recent discoveries in vision science suggest that elemental grouping can occur in more than one way, depending on how long elements are displayed. These findings have led to a new understanding of perceptual organization of elements in real-world spatial environments. However,these findings had not been explored within the context of UI environments. Time limits to UI are often set by task demands. Exposure time limits may affect perceptual grouping of elements in UI. Here I report a series of experiments that tested global and local pushbutton grouping by time in user interface displays. The research question was to determine whether global or local depictions of pushbutton groupings speed interaction with user interface. Global and local groupings were compared because prior researchers have discovered that global scene properties can be perceived before local scene properties. For this reason, it was hypothesized that global, as opposed to local, depictions of pushbutton groupings would speed human-interface interactions. Global grouping was defined as grouping by relatively large shapes whereas local grouping was defined as grouping by shapes that were relatively small. The difference between global and local grouping was quantitative and defined by comparison. Participants saw pushbutton interface displays on a computer monitor for varied exposure durations and were asked to make decisions about the grouping of pushbuttons in these displays. Responses and reaction times were recorded. The results of the reported experiments suggest that global, as compared to local, groupings are more accessible across stimulus durations. They also suggest that global groupings can be utilized faster than local groupings in unlimited exposures. Taken together, the reported results further our understanding of global and local Gestalt grouping in user interface displays