ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the implications of a space-based concept of attention to focused and divided attention as well as to selective attention. It deals with a second entity over which attention can be defined—the object, that is, object-based attention—by which is shown how objectness encourages parallel processing. The chapter discusses a description is given of applications of both space- and object-based attention theory to the important issue of designing displays, using the proximity compatibility principle as the underlying design framework for building displays that harmonize with the capacities of the human’s limited attentional resources. An emergent feature of a display is a new perceptual property that emerges from the combination of its single-dimension elements if these elements are combined or configured in a particular way that would not exist if they are presented separately. Importantly, research and intuition have suggested that emergent features need not be created by an object display, although they are usually encouraged by objectness.