The goal of this research is to study different aspects of visual information that can be part of modern graphical user interfaces. Depending on the required task that the user needs to complete, different visual aspects contribute differently to the performance of the users. Tasks can be categorisation, selection and retrieval from memory.
Visual aspects can be colour, spatial frequency and 'naturalness' of the stimulus.
Contributing to performance is also the amount of cognitive workload and the type of instruction given. There are many working environments that use Graphical User Interfaces. However, there are also many situations were the user has to interact with other people or machinery and cannot always focus on the interface itself, providing only a periferial view at the visual information that is present. In these situations, differnent visual aspects of the stimulus may become more ore less important for an accurate performance. The results of experiments will culminate in the definition of a theoretical, cognitive model that can be used to indicate what visual aspects a stimulus should have in relation to the required task in a Graphical User Interface.