Rate of Handling Information and the Rate of Information Presentation

"This experiment was designed to determine whether the rate of handling information in a forced-paced serial task is a function of (a) the rate of stimulus presentation, (b) the uncertainty per stimulus, or (c) the joint effect of these factors expressed as the rate of information presentation per se. The experiment involved ten practiced subjects responding to Arabic numerals with motor (key-pressing) responses and with verbal responses. The independent variables were the rate at which the numerals were presented (one to three per second), and the number of possible alternative numerals employed (two, four, or eight). The results were as following: For a given constant rate of information presentation, an increased rate of transmission was obtained by increasing the number of possible alternative stimuli and decreasing the rate of stimulus presentation. There were significant decrements in the relative Information transmission rate with increases in the rate of stimulus presentation, but no significant changes with increases in the number of possible alternative stimuli. The percentage omitted responses was relatively unaffected by increases in stimulus complexity at the lower rates of stimulus presentation, but was markedly increased by increases in stimulus complexity at the higher rates of stimulus presentation. In general, the results suggest that information is handled more efficiently the larger the set of alternative stimuli and responses. This finding may represent an interesting difference between animate and inanimate information-handling systems."--Abstract.