Following a question on UX.Stackexchange about whether or not to use an analog or digital clock on a website from a user-interface perspective it occurs to me that there is probably a psychological difference between using one or the other.My hypothesis is that it takes longer to know the time when reading digital instead of analog because as children we are taught to understand time via analog clocks (5 past, half past, quarter to etc) so when confronted with a digital clock we have to do some internal calculations to convert from digital numbers into a mental analog clock before we actually understand what the time is. (07:47, ok so if 07:45 is quarter-to that means it's now half-way between quarter-to and ten-to eight...).However I'm aware this may just be my own internal process I'm citing rather than being how people in general use clocks so I'm interested to know if my hypothesis is actually supported / disproved.
Does it take more cognitive effort to tell the time when reading a digital clock instead of analog?
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