Every day we perceive pictures on our mobile phones and scroll through images within a limited space. At present, however, visual perception via image scrolling is not well understood. This study investigated the nature of visual perception within a small window frame. It compared visual search efficiency using three modes: scrolling, moving-window, and free-viewing. The item number and stimulus size varied. Results showed variations in search efficiency depending on search mode. The slowest search occurred under the scrolling condition, followed by the moving-window condition, and the fastest search occurred under the no-window condition. For the scrolling condition, the response time increased the least sharply in proportion to item number but most sharply in proportion to the stimulus size compared to the other two conditions. Analysis of the trace of scan revealed frequent pauses interjected with small and fast stimulus shifts for the scrolling condition, but slow and continuous window movements interjected with a few pauses for the moving-window condition. We concluded that searching via scrolling was less efficient than searching via a moving-window, reflecting differences in dynamic properties of participants’ scan.

我们每天都会在手机上感知图片，并在有限的空间内滚动浏览图像。然而目前，通过图像滚动的视觉感知还没有得到很好的理解。这项研究调查了小窗框内视觉感知的本质。它使用三种模式比较了视觉搜索效率：滚动、移动窗口和自由查看。项目数量和刺激大小各不相同。结果显示，搜索效率因搜索模式而异。最慢的搜索发生在滚动条件下，其次是移动窗口条件，最快的搜索发生在无窗口条件下。对于滚动条件，与其他两种条件相比，响应时间与项目数量的比例增加最小，但与刺激大小的比例增加最大。对扫描轨迹的分析显示，在滚动条件下，频繁的暂停插入了小而快速的刺激变化，但在移动窗口条件下，缓慢而连续的窗口移动插入了一些暂停。我们得出的结论是，通过滚动搜索的效率低于通过移动窗口搜索的效率，这反映了参与者扫描的动态属性的差异。