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.

每天，我们都会在手机上感知图片，并在有限的空间内滚动浏览图片。然而，目前，对通过图像滚动的视觉感知还没有很好的理解。这项研究调查了在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。项目编号和刺激大小各不相同。结果显示，搜索效率取决于搜索模式。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，与其他两个条件相比，响应时间与项目编号成比例增加最少，但与刺激大小成比例增加最多。对扫描痕迹的分析显示，在滚动条件下，频繁的停顿被插入小的和快速的刺激位移，而在移动窗口条件下，缓慢而连续的窗口移动被插入了一些停顿。我们得出的结论是，通过滚动进行搜索的效率不如通过移动窗口进行搜索，这反映了参与者扫描的动态属性的差异。