Effects of Allocated Attention on Visual Search Tasks: a Web-based Experiment on Animation Interference

This paper reports a study on the role of a subject’s intention on animation interference. Experiment results show that first, experiment instruction can sometimes eliminate animation interference. Second, the moment animation is on the screen does not differentiate the animation interference if the subjects are not instructed to ignore animation. Third, stay on animation has less impact than animation that is repeated on and off during the task. This research has practical implications for user interface designs, especially web designs, and theoretical implications for the predictive power of classic visual attention theories in computing environments.