A quantitative measure for information transfer in human-machine control systems

Impact of familiarity on information complexity in human-computer interfaces

“…The model (10) was also highly significant (F 1,1901 =5.33; p<0.001), the F L factor was significant only at D=0.05 (p=0.021), and the R 2 was even lower, at 0.003. As a comparison, in [12] the subjects' age factor had somehow comparable effect on their TPS (F 1,5830 =9.48; p=0.002; R 2 =0.002).…”

“…The ability to excel with signals of increased complexity somehow explains why humans are notably good, in comparison to machines, at image recognition. In one of our previous experiments we found that the higher was the diversity of objects in visual search/selection tasks, the higher throughput (TPS) was demonstrated -from 42 bit/s for objects' vocabulary size = 2 (simplest tasks) to 78 bit/s for vocabulary size = 29 (Russian letters) [12]. It should be noted that recognition speed for familiar letters and digits was previously estimated as 55 bit/s [7, ref 75].…”

“…In the related part of the experiment (more detailed description of the whole experiment can be found in [12]), the subjects were asked to undertake selection tasks. The were presented with a starting square positioned randomly (to negate the effect of movement direction) next to the work area of varying size S 0 (256x256, 512x320, 512x512, or 1024x640 pixels), in which N (8, 32, or 128) objects of varying size W (16, 32, or 64 pixels) would appear.…”

“…In our previous analysis of the experimental data [12], we first built regression for the classic Hick's law, which turned out to be significant (F 1,5830 =1494; p<0.001), but had quite poor R 2 =0.204 and perplexing negative intercept: ) log( * 616 691 N ST (4) Among several factors potentially reflecting the complexity of interface that we tried in the regression, the "effective interface capacity", defined as number of alternatives multiplied by logarithm of their vocabulary size, showed the best fit:…”

“…In our previous work [12] we introduced the concept of throughput for selection tasks (TPS), with Fitts' index of task difficulty substituted for the "effective interface capacity" factor:…”