Abstract
When a driver views a display device in the passenger compartment, for example an in-vehicle navigation system, it is conceivable that he or she will repeatedly divert their attention to the display device for short periods of time to read the displayed information or that they will read the information consecutively all at one time. The authors investigated differences in the amount of information acquired for both of these reading methods by carrying out experiments indoors. They investigated by showing observers place names as display data and seeing how many of the place names the observer could remember after the end of the display. The display time conditions for the experiment were following five types
(1) Continuous display
(2) Repeated display for 0.5 second with one-second intervals
(3) Repeated display for 0.5 second with two-second intervals
(4) Repeated display for one second with one-second intervals
(5) Repeated display for one second with two-second intervals
This experiment showed that even when the amount of time that the observer was actually viewing the display was the same, the amount of data acquired by the observer from reading the display repeatedly was greater than the amount of information acquired by reading the display through at one time. In other words, it can be inferred that even during the time while the observer is not viewing the display, information retention and processing is being carried out in short-term memory and that this time is effective for acquiring information.
