Visual search for signage in a natural environment

• Main Author: Cheam, Lydia Xiao Wei
• Other Authors: Xu Hong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66821
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The natural environment that individuals are exposed to on a daily basis is filled with many distractions and stimuli, which makes it difficult for them to sieve through all the information to find what they were looking for (Hwang, Higgins, & Pomplun, 2009). Past research on visual search has mostly looked at attention models and saliency concepts (Hout and Goldinger, 2015), and there are various suggestions regarding how individuals find information in natural scenes. Some research has shown evidence for top-down processing and goal-directed search (Ossandón et al., 2012), while others state that it is bottom-up processing that facilitates visual search (Siebold and Van Zoest, 2013). However, in the case of visual search within natural environments, it could very well be both (Wolfe, 1998a). The objective of this research was to investigate the various factors that facilitate visual search in natural environments, and in particular, the search for signs in Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) stations, through modifying the current signage. These new signs were designed to ensure greater salience, and to take into consideration a general consistency of signs across all MRT stations. We administered two-alternative forced choice identification tasks to 31 undergraduate students and calculated their accuracy scores and response rates. Our results revealed significant effects for the edited images in categories that included identification and reassurance type signs, while no significant effects were found for categories of direction and amenities type signage.