Visual Display Highlighting and Information Extraction

This research examined the influence of computer-generated highlighting on visual search performance and information extraction. The tasks used to examine information extraction were a detection task (presence or absence of visual features), a localization task (knowledge of target's location), and an identification task (word identification). For each of the three tasks there were twelve highlighting techniques that were presented among displays of varying sizes (i.e., 3, 12, 24 items). The study tested twenty-five subjects, with a total of 30,480 screens being viewed. The results suggested that all the highlighting techniques tested were detected and localized more quickly and accurately than the non-highlighted condition. The identification task required the greatest amount of attention (i.e., processing time), and suggested a final stage of visual search where the content of a visually highlighted message is recognized. During all three tasks the information highlighted by color or by an enclosed frame was not influenced by changes in set size, and demonstrated the benefits associated with these visual display highlighting techniques. There was also partial support for the idea that some techniques may draw attention away from the item being highlighted (Fisher and Tan, 1989), while others may allow the highlighted item to “pop out” at the viewer (Treisman and Gormican, 1988). These findings also have implications for the presentation of computer-generated highlighting on visual display terminals.