Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Prior research indicated that information processing isinfluenced by the proximity of the hands to information:visuospatial processing is fostered near the hands, whereastextual processing might not be affected or even inhibitednear the hands. This study investigated how the proximity ofthe hands to digital information in pop-ups influenceslearning outcomes on multi-touch devices. Depending on thedistance between the information in the pop-ups and thehands of the users there were three conditions: (1) all pop-upsopened near the hands, (2) all pop-ups opened far from thehands, and (3) pop-ups with visuospatial information openednear the hands, whereas pop-ups with textual informationopened far from the hands (mixed condition). Results showedbetter learning outcomes when visuospatial pop-ups arepresented near the hands, whereas there was no difference inlearning outcomes between near and far presented textualpop-ups. Results and implications for multi-touch designs arediscussed.