1. MEASURING AWARENESS AND DISTRACTION CAUSED BY CHANGE IN INFORMATION DENSITY
A Semester project by
MAULIK SHUKLA DENZIL JOHN AJAY JAMPANI
Project Advisors:
DR. CHRIS NORTH DR. SCOTT McCRICKARD

2. CONTENTS MOTIVATION EXPERIMENTAL SET UP METHODOLOGY SUBJECTS FINDINGS
CONCLUSION
FUTURE WORK

3. MOTIVATION
Understanding the effects of information density on one’s ability to perform primary task
Awareness caused by a change in information density
Related work
- SOMERVELL et al. “Measuring awareness and distraction caused by textual and graphical displays in the periphery”

4. EXPERIMENTAL SET UP Primary Task: Computer Simulated Game
Secondary Task: Pictures of Varying Density

5. PICTURES OF DIFFERENT DENSITY LEVELS
DENSITY RATIO 16:4:1 (FOR ALL PURPOSE)
HIGH (320)
MEDIUM (80)
LOW (20)

6. METHODOLOGY Three Groups - Only game - Only picture - Game + Picture
Three Rounds
Three Density Levels
In changing order
- Low Mid High
- Mid High Low
- High Low Mid

7. SUBJECTS

8. RESULTS

9. CONCLUSIONS
No significant effect of information density on primary task performance – It is just presence of secondary task that makes the difference
No significant effect of change in density on secondary task performance
Count and Identify tasks are better at low densities and Pattern and Group tasks are better at high densities

10. FUTURE WORK Make the primary and secondary task more realistic
More weightage to the errors in primary task
Time based analysis of effect of information density on primary task

11. THANKS Special thanks to JACOB SOMERVELL for system integration
STUDENTS OF 2604 and all other FRIENDS who participated in the experiment