PSYCHOLOGY OF COMPUTER USE .46. AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN THE MAPPING OF AUDITORY ICONS TO VISUAL ICONS IN COMPUTER INTERFACES FOR CHILDREN

An investigation was conducted to characterize how children ages 6 thr ough 9 identify auditory icons present in educational software. 24 sub jects were required to map auditory icons to Visual icons, both presen t in a computer interface. The interface used in the experiment was co nstructed with Visual Basic and involved 40 auditory icons, 40 corresp onding visual icons, and 66 extraneous Visual icons. II was hypothesiz ed that older children would be better able to map the auditory icons to visual icons due to more extensive exposure to everyday sounds. The results supported the hypothesis and suggestions for additional resea rch were provided.