This question appears in Mumbai University > Human Machine Interaction subject

Marks: 10 M

Year: May 2014

1. Sensory storage is the buffer where the automatic processing of information collected from our senses takes place.
2. It is an unconscious process, large, attentive to the environment, quick to detect changes and constantly being replaced by newly gathered stimuli.
3. It acts like radar constantly scanning the environment for things that are important to pass on to higher memory.
4. Repeated and excessive stimulation can fatigue the sensory storage mechanism making it less attentive and unable to distinguish what is important (called habituation).
5. Design the interface in such a way to avoid unnecessarily stressing the sensory storage.
6. Design the interface so that all aspects and elements serve a definite purpose.
7. Eliminating interface noise will ensure that important things will be less likely missed.
8. Long-term memory contains the knowledge we possess. Information received in short-memory is transferred to it and encoded within it, a process we call learning.
9. It is a complex process requiring some effort on our part. The learning process is improved if the information being transferred from short-term memory has structure and is meaningful and familiar. Learning is also improved through repetition.
10. Unlike short-term memory with its distinct limitation long-term memory capacity is thought to be unlimited.
11. An important memory consideration with significant implications for interface design is the difference in ability to recognize or recall words.
12. The human active vocabulary (words that can be recalled) typically ranges between 2, 000 to 3, 000 words. Passive vocabulary (words that can be recognized) typically numbers about 1, 00,000.
13. Our power of recognition therefore is much greater than our power of recall and this phenomenon should be utilized in design. To do this one should present whenever possible lists of alternatives to remind people of the choices they have.
14. Short-term or working memory receives information from either the senses or long-term memory but usually cannot receive both at once the senses being processed separately.
15. Within short-term memory a limited amount of information processing takes place.
16. Information stored within it is variously thought to last from 10 to 30 seconds with the lower number being the most reasonable speculation.
17. Estimates of working memory storage capacity has gradually been lowered from Miller’s 7±2 items to a size of 3-4 items today.
18. Knowledge, experience and familiarity govern the size and complexity of the information that can be remembered.
19. A greater working memory is positively related to increase reading comprehension, drawing inferences from text, reasoning skill and learning technical information.
20. When performing complex tasks working memory can be increased through applying two senses, vision and audition rather than one.
21. Performance can be degraded when a person must attend to multiple information sources and then must integrate the information before understanding occur.