Cognition in Alphabet-Letter-Searching on Visual Display Terminal -A Comparison between Junior High School Students and University Students

摘要

With an eye to finding the most appropriate VDT (Visual Display Terminal) monitor design for junior high school students and improving computer education, this study examined the differences in visual cognition between junior high school students and university students. In our experiment, a computer monitor was divided into nine equal areas, and a single letter of the alphabet was displayed randomly in each area; the speed at which participants could search out a particular letter and their ability to recall the positioning of letters were then tested. Results revealed that both junior high and university students had better recall for letters appearing in the upper-left area of the screen and worse recall for letters appearing at the bottom right and that university students had faster recognition and better recall than junior high students. A similar gap was found among junior high students of different grades.