Ive got a site that uses some images as UI graphics, the sort of thing is : loading gifslider next / prev arrowmodal close Xetc.. In total there are about 10 images, each <8kb so download speed isnt that much of an issue but the amount of connections the browser is making is (as this slows down the overall load) to get around this im planning on placing all images into a sprite sheet. My concern is setting the alt attribute for these images as in each instance although the src will be the same, the image displayed to the user will be different. Usually i set the alt attribute for each of these images something like 'alt=slider-next' not that there is much seo benefit from (as the images are usually small around 1% of screen area so i guess have no major SEO impact) this but its just semantic.Would a search bot get confused (or worse penalise the site) if it sees the same src 10 times on a page, but each time with a different 'alt' description ? 
SEO issues using the same `src` for a sprite sheet, but each time with a different `alt` attribute
seo;alt attribute;sprite