Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
23
Visual, Tactile, and
Multimodal
Information
Processing
23.1 Introduction . ............................ 23-1
23.2 Vision .................................. 23-2
23.3 Touch .................................. 23-12
23.4 Combining Vision, Touch, and Other
Modalities: The Benefits and Limitations
of Multimodal Information Presentation . ...... 23-17
Modality Affordances
†
Multimodal Interface Design to
Date
†
Crossmodal Constraints on Multimodal
Information Processing
23.5 Concluding Remarks
Nadine Sarter
University of Michigan
. ..................... 23-21
23.1 Introduction
This chapter will discuss the most, and one of the least, frequently employed sensory channels in current
interface design: vision and touch. Foveal vision
1
in particular continues to be relied on heavily in display
design, mostly because it affords a higher rate of information transfer than other sensory channels
(Sorkin, 1987). Visual representations appear to be well-suited for conveying large amounts of
complex detailed information, especially in the spatial domain. They also allow for permanent presen-
tation, which affords delayed and prolonged attending. However, in many environments, overreliance
on, and the inappropriate design of, foveal visual displays has resulted in data overload and related break-
downs in attention management and human-machine interaction.
One promising way to overcome these problems was suggested by an early version of Multiple
Resource Theory (MRT; Wickens, 1984), which assumed that different modalities draw from separate
pools of attentional resources and that therefore more information could be processed effectively if it
was distributed across sensory channels. This assumption seems to be supported by experiences in
many real-world domains where a combination of visual and auditory information presentation is
1
In contrast to peripheral vision, foveal vision involves the perception of cues that are presented in the central 2
8
of
visual angle.
23-1
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