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Optical Illusions Offer Balm for Buffering Boredom

by Terrence O'Brien on April 10, 2010 at 12:30 PM

A group of researchers, led by Chris Harrison of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, have shown that simply applying an animation to a progress bar can make it appear to move 10-percent faster.

The scientists set up a series of mock downloads using different progress bars. The control, a plain blue bar that moved from left to right, was compared to bars that pulsated between light and dark, and ones that had ripples moving either left or right. The speeds at which the bars pulsated and the ripples moved were also varied, sometimes dynamically as the bar reached completion. All of the download bars took exactly five seconds to complete, yet participants thought that the bars pulsing more quickly as the download neared completion had finished faster than the rest. Participants also said that the bars whose ripples moved from right to left, and slowed down as the bar reached completion, had finished in less time than those bars with ripples moving from left to right.

To quantify the bars' apparent (not actual) speeds, the researchers showed participants the bars again, but this time they gradually increased the length of time it took for the animated bars to complete -- until the observers reported they had all taken the same amount of time to finish. The results ended up showing a 10- to 11-percent difference in perception.

So maybe researchers can't get that dial-up connection moving any faster, but at least maybe they can trick you into thinking it is. [From: New Scientist]

Tags: brain, computer, internet, OpticalIllusion, research, study, top, VisualEffects

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