The Bargraph as a Configural and a Separable Display

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Abstract
The results from two experiments demonstrate the conditions under which a bargraph display can be processed both as a configural display and as a separable display. When there is a unique mapping of display attributes to system state categories (Experiment 1), the perceptual cues in the bargraph display serve to produce superior classification performance. Once that mapping and predictability is disrupted (Experiment 2), operators resort to analyzing the bargraph display in a separable fashion and produce performance equivalent to the serially processed digital display. Uncertainty (i.e., the degree to which a value or set of values of process variables map to a single system state) appears to be the primary factor affecting the way in which the bargraph display will be processed.