A cognitive psychological study of communication with visual symbols.

这项调查的目的是开发一些有用的交流工具，不仅对残疾人，而且对包括老年人或儿童在内的任何其他人也是如此。为了达到这一目的，许多心理学研究都考察了儿童和老年人对静态视觉符号和动画视觉符号的理解差异。心理学研究表明，被试对动画表意文字的理解比对静态符号的理解更贴切。特别是，代表显性运动的概念被认为用动画表意文字表达得更好。也有人提出，用静态表意文字表示运动的箭头的意思，无论是学龄前儿童还是老年参与者都不容易理解。对于许多参与者来说，这些相应的动画表意文字的表现有所改善，就像幼儿的情况一样。两组在一些视觉符号的命名任务上表现出惊人的差异。这一发现反映在两个交流工具的出版上。一个是名为“PICBOOK”的类似专辑的书，包含了视觉符号，另一个是名为“PICDIC”的软件，可以与动画符号一起使用。

This investigation aimed to develop some useful tools for communication which are convenient not only for handicapped people but also any other people including the aged or young children. In order to achieve this goal, several psychological researches have been conducted to investigate the differences of comprehension between static and animated visual symbols both in preschoolers and in aged people.It is indicated in the psychological researches that participants reported more appropriate names for animated ideograms than they did so for static symbols. Especially, the concepts that represent explicit motions were considered to be better expressed with animated ideograms. It was also suggested that the meaning of the arrow, which was used to show a movement in static ideograms was not easily understood both by preschoolers and aged participants. The performances for these corresponding animated ideograms turned to be improved for many participants as in the case of young children. Two groups showed impressive discrepancy in their naming tasks for some visual symbols.The findings are reflected in the publication of two communication tools. One is an album-like book named "PICBOOK" that incorporated visual symbols and the other is software named "PICDIC" that could be used with animated symbols.