The Use of Iambic Pentameter in the

durations, however, it was predicted that grouping could occur by both color similarity
and connectedness, the local scene detail. This hypothesis was based on recent research
in vision science that has shown a time course of global to local perceptual processing
(Kimchi, 1998; Kimchi & Hadad, 2002; Sanocki, 1993; Sanocki, 2001).
Once the data were collected, participants were classified as either color similarity
groupers, mixed groupers, or connectedness groupers. Figure 19B depicts these findings.
As shown, most participants in the short stimulus duration grouped by the global
principle of color similarity (13 by color similarity, 2 by connectedness in the 200ms
condition). At the long stimulus duration, however, some participants grouped by local
principle of connectedness and some participants grouped by a mixture of both principles
(8 by color similarity, 4 by mixed principles, and 3 by connectedness in the 2000ms
condition). In summary, grouping began predominantly by a global Gestalt principle of
color similarity but then switched to occur by both global and local principles. The results
of the first pilot study suggest the potential for a time course of global to local Gestalt
grouping in interface displays.
One of the shortcomings of the stimuli presented in the first pilot experiment was
the use of rectangular buttons. Schulz and Sanocki (2002) questioned whether the
rectangular buttons in the stimuli grouped by connectedness in the horizontal plane in the
same way that they grouped by connectedness in the vertical plane. If not, this may have
affected horizontal grouping by connectedness of the central pushbutton with the vertical
columns of pushbuttons on either side. To address this issue, pushbuttons presented in the
second pilot experiment were depicted as squares instead of rectangles. In addition, the
62