Cueina Multimedia Search with Audiovisual Blur

摘要

Situated in the context of multimedia browsing, this study concerns perceptual processes involved in searching for an audiovisual object displayed among several distractors. The aim of the study is to increase the perceptual saliency of the target in order to enhance the search process. As blurring distractors and maintaining the target sharp has proved to be a great facilitator of visual search, we propose combining visual blur with an audio blur analogue to improve multimodal search. Three perceptual experiments were performed in which participants had to retrieve an audiovisual object from a set of six competing stimuli. The first two experiments explored the effect of blur level on unimodal search tasks. A third experiment investigated the influence of an audio and visual modality combination with both modalities cued on an audiovisual search task. Results showed that both visual and audio blurs render stimuli distractors less prominent and thus helped users focus on a sharp target more easily. Performances were also faster and more accurate in the bimodal condition than in either unimodal search task, auditory or visual. Our work suggests that audio and audiovisual interfaces dedicated to multimedia search could benefit from different uses of blur on presentation strategies.