An evaluation of touch-screen input for a HyperCard-based digit-span task

The touch screen appears to be an ideal input device for human subjects in many research applications in psychology. Nonetheless, the research on relative merits of input devices is inconclusive. The present experiments were carried out to compare touch-screen, mouse, and voice responses on a HyperCard-based digit-span task. The results indicated that touch-screen input has no advantage in comparison to the use of a mouse, but that it produces better performance than voice response does. The latter finding, however, may be an artifact of visual cues embedded in this implementation of the digit-span task.