American and Japanese Control-Display Stereotypes: Possible Implications for Design of Space Station Systems

This study examined the stimulus-response stereotypes of American (United States citizens) and Japanese (Japanese citizens) subjects on the issue of control-display arrangements. Three questions were investigated. First, do Japanese and Americans operators adhere to the same compatibility principles, e.g., clockwise-for-increase, for certain configurations? Second, do the operators show similar or different responses to certain configurations? Third, are there arrangements in which both populations show strong or weak stimulus-response stereotypes? A paper and pencil test that contained 24 different control-display configurations was administered to 58 American subjects and 58 Japanese subjects, all of whom were right-handed. Out of the 24 configurations, only one elicited similar and statistically significant response stereotypes from American and Japanese subjects. The arrangement that did so emphasized that three compatibility principles (clockwise-for-increase, nearness of control-cursor relation, and...