The Impact of Visual Load on Performance in a Human-computation Game
Christina Chung, Amit Kadan, Yueti Yang, Asako Matsuoka, Julia Rubin, and Marsha Chechik
In Proceedings
of the 12th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG’17). 2017.
ABSTRACT
It is well-known that tasks imposing high cognitive load, i.e., the mental effort required to carry out a task, place a strain on people's ability to perform. In light of this, the present study investigates whether poor performance also occurs in human-computation games. That is, do players perform better in game designs that increase the visual information presented? These designs have the advantage of exposing players to more of the solution space, but may come with the caveat of imposing a higher cognitive load. We present a case study by considering alternative layouts differing in the amount of visual information given to players in a human-computation game. The findings of the study seem to support the idea that presenting more information is beneficial to players. This is surprising result that challenges prevailing beliefs about cognitive load, and invites more detailed, future investigation.
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