Effects of Spatial Arrangement on Visual Search in Grid-based AAC by Adults without Disabilities
Open Access
- Author:
- Le Van, Emily
- Area of Honors:
- Communication Sciences and Disorders
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Krista M Wilkinson, Thesis Supervisor
Carol Anne Miller, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- AAC
complex communication needs - Abstract:
- The current study aimed to answer the question, “how can the principles of spatial arrangement be used to maintain less visual crowding while filling in the white spaces on a grid-based AAC display?” Specifically, it sought to determine whether spatial arrangements that reduce visual crowding by manipulating the size and spatial of symbols on an array might facilitate search. Twenty-five typically developing participants, ranging in age from 18 to 30-years-old, participated. After presenting a photograph on a screen followed by a verbal prompt, the participants were asked to locate a symbol on one of four display design conditions. The conditions were labeled SOC, CSR, SAC, and PermAr. Each of the four possible layout conditions had something altered to it, whether it was symbol size, the clustering of symbols, or a combination of both. Participant’s eye gaze transitions from the target symbol was recorded across these four conditions. For the majority of participants, their visual attention stayed fixated on the target or transitioned to a grammatically related symbol when presented with the perimeter design display, called the PermAr. Moreover, PermAr exhibited the least amount of participants to transition their gaze to a distracter (irrelevant symbol) from the target symbol when compared to the other conditions. Clinicians should consider utilizing a perimeter display that utilizes a ‘perimeter arrangement’ to separate the grammatical categories. Often clinicians maximize the number of symbols on AAC grid-based displays to increase the vocabulary inventory which causes visual crowding. The perimeter display reduced visual crowding and narrowed AAC user's visual attention which made it easier to find the target symbol. Further research will require expansion to individuals who would be actual users of AAC.