Stereotype for control-burner relationship of four-burner ranges for Koreans

• This study investigated the population stereotypes of Koreans for control-burner linkages of four-burner gas ranges.
• A paper–pencil test and a real gas range experiment were adopted as methods of this research.
• Four types of control-burner linkages including Type II–V were tested.
• Two independent variables of reaction time and error rate were tested.
• The most preferred arrangement of control-burner linkages for Koreans is Type III.

This study aims to investigate the population stereotype of control-burner arrangement of four-burner gas ranges for Koreans. A paper–pencil test and a real gas range experiment were adopted as methods of this research. In the paper–pencil test, 355 participants, including 116 females and 239 males, participated. The participants were shown a drawing of a four-burner gas range, in which each burner was labeled with meaningless symbols such as ‘’, ‘#’, ‘Δ’ and ‘□’. The participants were asked to indicate the corresponding burner to each control knob. Type III (a type of control-burner linkages, refer to Fig. 1) was most frequently chosen, followed by Type IV, Type V and Type II. In the real gas range experiment, 32 college students, consisting of 12 females and 20 males, volunteered to participate. Two independent variables of reaction time and error rate were used. The participants were requested to turn off the light on the burner by pushing the correct control as quickly as possible. The results revealed that although the linkage types were not significant on the reaction time and error rate (p > 0.20), both variables of Type III were the best. Hence, the most preferred arrangement of control-burner linkages for Koreans is Type III, irrespective of the three dependent variables such as proportion of responses, reaction time and error rate, which is different from that of Americans and Chinese.Relevance to industryDisplays and controls are the major means of communication between operators/users and machines in man–machine systems. For designing man–machine systems compatible with human expectations, information on stereotypes for display-control relationships is needed.