Display Proximity in Multicue Information Integration: The Benefits of Boxes

Abstract

This study investigates the ability of an individual to integrate probabilistic information from a number of sources, and focuses particularly on the extent to which this integration is influenced by display proximity in space, time, and object configuration. In support of the principle of compatibility of proximity, the data indicated that integration performance was clearly ordered according to the degree of display integrality: those in the more integral rectangle conditions were significantly better at integration than those in the bar graph condition. Proximity of space had little effect upon performance, whereas proximity in time significantly improved performance in all three format conditions. Speed stress significantly hindered performance in all three format conditions. Finally, memory for isolated unintegrated attributes of a cue was not harmed by the increasing integrality of the rectangle formats.