Article

Not Now! Supporting Interruption Management by Indicating the Modality and Urgency of Pending Tasks

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Abstract

Operators in complex event-driven domains must coordinate competing attentional demands in the form of multiple tasks and interactions. This study examined the extent to which this requirement can be supported more effectively through informative interruption cueing (in this case, partial information about the nature of pending tasks). The 48 participants performed a visually demanding air traffic control (ATC) task. They were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental groups that differed in the availability of information (not available, available upon request, available automatically) about the urgency and modality of pending interruption tasks. Within-subject variables included ATC-related workload and the modality, frequency, and priority of interruption tasks. The results show that advance knowledge about the nature of pending tasks led participants to delay visual interruption tasks the longest, which allowed them to avoid intramodal interference and scanning costs associated with performing these tasks concurrently with ATC tasks. The 3 experimental groups did not differ significantly in terms of their interruption task performance; however, the group that automatically received task-related information showed better ATC performance, thus experiencing a net performance gain. Actual or potential applications of this research include the design of interfaces in support of attention and interruption management in a wide range of event-driven environments.

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... Interruptions are a problem for the surgical staff: a study [133] reports that significantly more nurses make medical errors when they are interrupted than when they are uninterrupted. Popovici et al. [132] relate the key issues of effective communication among hospital stakeholders, which includes interruption problems and unintuitive user interface -a problem also discussed in civil aviation [82]. A study [99] designed a prototype of a phone application that displays the status of colleagues to nurses. ...
... The surgical staff reported (see B1. in Table 5) that if someone is not physically present in the surgical suite, he/she cannot be aware of whiteboard modifications he is involved in (change of the start time, location of the patient etc.) except if another person in the OR sends information to him/her via text messages/phone calls or if he/she comes to see the whiteboard. These two solutions are for the moment the most used ones by the surgeons and other staff but they are not convenient: it requires a synchronous communication involving interruptions issues [82]. Table 8 represents the analysis of collaborative mechanics [129] between the surgical suite staff, in the surgical suite and outside, synchronously and asynchronously. ...
... Interruptions are a similar problem in ATC and in the hospital field. Interruptions create undesired disruptiveness: partial information should accompany any type of disruptive notification to let the user decide whether or not it is worth interrupting the task [82]. Partial information can be a visual cue of a pending task, with an indication of its level of priority [82]. ...
Thesis
Surgical suite management plays a key role in the endeavor of hospitals: patients’ health at sustainable cost. Computerization and automation of processes are conventional solutions to support resource management and efficiency. However, unsuitable support might not improve the management activity, and can even be detrimental to it. Our hypothesis is that usable and flexible interactivity tuned to local particularities can create a working environment in which the medical staff can cope with unexpected surgery events and appropriate the technology. Our contributions comprise an analysis of the activity of the surgical team, based on interviews, observations, review of the literature and an analogy with civil aviation. We participated in the construction of a mathematical model of the surgical workflow and a visualization of the mathematical model. We conducted an experimentation to identify bottlenecks of workflow inefficiencies and delays. We identified scenarios, requirements and design principles necessary to the development, integration and acceptation of a tool to support surgical workflow activities. We designed multi-users interactions on a large surface and made a prototype of electronic whiteboard, OnBoard, for the surgical suite which demonstrates the integration of the specifications and technical challenges. OnBoard belongs to a larger cyber physical system including activity sensors in every operating room of the surgical suite. Finally, we deployed the prototype in a surgical suite and evaluated it. The OnBoard experience suggests that the design of interactions is paramount to provide the medical staff an efficient collaborative environment.
... This directly relates to the weather symbology used in PEDs as pilots must interpret variations in colors and symbols to distinguish weather patterns (e.g., Ahlstrom & Dworsky, 2012;Novacek, Burgess, Heck, & Stokes, 2001). This also relates to how the perceived urgency of an emerging weather situation is relayed to a pilot; urgency might, for example, be communicated by using dimensions of acoustic or tactile signals (e.g., frequency, duration, intensity of cue presentations; Ho et al., 2004;Lu et al., 2013). Knowing the urgency of an incoming alert can allow pilots to temporarily postpone an action if other tasks, such as maintaining control of the aircraft, are deemed more important (Lu et al., 2013). ...
... This research builds on Valasek et al. (2015) and others' multisensory work by evaluating urgency-mapped, in-flight tactile alerts for weather-related events. Vibrotactile cues engage the often underutilized tactile channel to present an alternative to other sensory stimuli for supporting cockpit task management (e.g., Ho et al., 2004;Lu et al., 2013;Sklar & Sarter, 1999). ...
... One third of participants were presented with graded vibrations mapped to the severity of weather changes. These graded tactile cues have been found to improve trust in the validity of the cue (Lee, Hoffman, & Hayes, 2004) and support interruption management by aiding in the prioritization of tasks associated with the cues (Ho et al., 2004;Lu et al., 2013). Performance-based (reaction-time metrics), physiological (measures of brain activation), and subjective (standard ratings scales and a postexperiment questionnaire) metrics of mental workload and SA were used to evaluate differences between experimental conditions, giving information on the quality and timeliness of pilots' weather-related decision making. ...
Article
Objective: This research analyzed the effects of weather technology interface characteristics on the quality and timeliness of weather-related decision making via mental workload and situational awareness (SA) metrics using flight training devices (FTDs) and follow-up in-flight validation testing. Background: A significant number of fatal general aviation (GA) accidents are attributable to pilots flying into instrument meteorological conditions without the necessary certification for safe operation. Even when takeoff conditions are clear, they can degrade in flight. Pilots might consult in-flight weather technologies to inform flight-plan-related decisions. Method: GA pilots flew 2 scenarios in FTDs while receiving weather notifications (referred to here as alerts) via complex graphical or smart-watch-based visual displays and under different vibrotactile cuing conditions. In-flight testing examined if vibrotactile cuing effects found in simulation were present in real flight. Results: Results suggest the quality and timeliness of weather-related flight decisions and flight-related SA are better supported when displays use vibrotactile cues and embed alert text within maps rather than present it separately on a smart watch. In-flight data confirmed that pilots can reliably perceive vibrotactile cues in real aircraft. Conclusion: Vibrotactile cues improve the reception of notifications and can reduce cognitive demands while flying. Visual weather information should be displayed on larger screens that are positioned to reduce pilots’ postural reorientation. These findings can inform the design of weather technologies for supporting pilot in-flight decision making.
... For example, pilots can choose to listen to continuously looped recordings of routine reports by tuning to a particular radio channel and can call ATC to read out or clarify any unscheduled messages. This flexibility supports some degree of pilot "interruption management", an important concept to consider in aviation human factors [7,13,14] and a topic of research in a variety of work domains that require humans to divide attention and information-processing resources among multiple tasks that overlap in time [15][16][17][18]. ...
... This study builds on previous works that used vibratory notifications to support pilot situation awareness and performance by effectively guiding attention in the cockpit [13,27,29]. The current study investigated the extent to which pilots' awareness of weather dynamics and management of concurrent flight tasks could be supported when the availability of new weather information is announced via vibratory cues. ...
Article
Full-text available
Despite the increasing availability of technologies that provide access to aviation weather information in the cockpit, weather remains a prominent contributor to general aviation (GA) accidents. Pilots fail to detect the presence of new weather information, misinterpret it, or otherwise fail to act appropriately on it. When cognitive demands imposed by concurrent flight tasks are high, the risks increase for each of these failure modes. Previous research shows how introducing vibrotactile cues can help ease or redistribute some of these demands, but there is untapped potential in exploring how vibratory cues can facilitate “interruption management”, i.e., fitting the processing of available weather information into flight task workflow. In the current study, GA pilots flew a mountainous terrain scenario in a flight training device while receiving, processing, and acting on various weather information messages that were displayed visually, in graphical and text formats, on an experimental weather display. Half of the participants additionally received vibrotactile cues via a connected smartwatch with patterns that conveyed the “severity” of the message, allowing pilots to make informed decisions about when to fully attend to and process the message. Results indicate that weather messages were acknowledged more often and faster when accompanied by the vibrotactile cues, but the time after acknowledgment to fully process the messages was not significantly affected by vibrotactile cuing, nor was overall situation awareness. These findings illustrate that severity-encoded vibrotactile cues can support pilot awareness of updated weather as well as task management in processing weather messages while managing concurrent flight demands.
... This person coordinates the whole nurse team and is a reference in the surgical suite for any question of organization. However, Popovici et al. [33] relate the key issues of effective communication among hospital stakeholders, including interruption problems and unintuitive user interface -problem also discussed in civil aviation [20]. Indeed, the mobility of information and the relationship between information and representation [3,4] are valuable but rarely served by technology within the hospital. ...
... Though it is not the focus of the paper, we also designed and developed a mobile phone application to enable the staff to pick information about cases from OnBoard when connecting with the phone and carry it within the hospital. The MyBoard app was designed according to interruptions management guidelines [20]. However, we did not deploy it for security and privacy reasons. ...
Conference Paper
Effective management of surgical suites require teamwork and constant adaptation. Attempts to bring computer support might deteriorate information accuracy, be inflexible and turn staff collaborative tools into administrative tools. We present OnBoard, an 84" multitouch surface application to support surgical flow management. OnBoard supports multiple users, transposes existing coordination artifacts into interactive objects, and offers interactions such as free writing or addition or rescheduling of cases. As part of a cyber-infrastructure, OnBoard enables users to benefit from real-time activity sensors in the surgical suite while offering ways to mitigate potential glitches. OnBoard was installed in a surgical suite of 12 operating rooms for 2 months that performed about 300 procedures. We observed its use, ran interviews and questionnaires and tailored the interactions according to users' needs. OnBoard suggests that tailored, flexible tools might effectively support the surgical staff and be an important part of patients' health improvement.
... Time pressure and mental demands have been found to mediate the relationship between workflow interruptions and job satisfaction, as well as irritation 7) . In some work settings, interruptions have even been discovered to be risky due to an enhanced likelihood of errors and accidents [13][14][15] . In cross-sectional studies, researchers have established positive relationships between work interruptions and depression, psychosomatic complaints, and exhaustion in different occupational groups [16][17][18] . ...
Article
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The study tested a brief intervention to stimulate and help supervisors reduce work-related interruptions among their employees, both at work and during leisure time. The core of the short-term intervention was a workplace analysis of work-related interruptions, which was fed back to supervisors in combination with a work redesign stimulation explaining why and how to reduce interruptions. Two intervention sessions, as one-on-one physical meetings, that lasted 1.5 h each and were 2 wk apart. The sample consisted of 20 managers and 89 employees. The non-experimental repeated measurement design comprised three questionnaire measurements of the 89 employees (two pre-measurements and one post-measurement). Repeated measure hierarchical linear models showed that the intervention significantly predicted reduced interruptions during work and work-related interruptions of leisure time. Although the intervention effect sizes were small, the current work design intervention with supervisors as mediating actors can reasonably contribute to occupational health prevention.
... There are beginning to be developed design-oriented solutions that can (a) use automation to monitor the progress of certain types of manual work to assess more appropriate times to interrupt (Bailey & Konstan, 2006;Dorneich et al., 2012); (b) provide advanced notification of the importance of the interruption so that the operator can decide whether or not to fully abandon the ongoing task or postpone a switch to the interruption task (Ho et al., 2004); (c) provide visual placeholders, like a flashing cursor, that will support rapid reacquisition of an ongoing task after the switch (Trafton et al., 2005); (d) provide support tools, particularly for situation awareness maintenance during interruptions, such as that described by St. John and Smallman (2008) and (e) provide techniques for breaking through the attentional tunnel if automation infers that this is taking place (St Lot et al., 2020) A computational model incorporating some of these effects was developed by Wickens, Gutzwiller et al. (2015), and is called STOM (strategic task overload management); the "overload" term deriving from the fact that it is primarily in these times when workload imposed by multi-tasking demands is "over the red line" and concurrent performance impossible that task switching and task shedding strategies are invoked. Here then, the multi-task performer must make decisions, explicit or implicit, of which task to choose (to perform) and which tasks to "shed". ...
Article
Full-text available
We discuss two general concepts of attention: (1) As a filter of selective attention that selects and admits channels of information from the environment to be processed; (2) as a resource to enable subsequent information processing, constrained by the individual demand of tasks, and particularly the collective demands of multiple tasks needing to be performed concurrently defining the limits of multitasking. In both concept domains we review theories and design principles, and particularly computational models of attentional process and performance outputs. In discussing the filter we consider supervisory control, noticing, visual search, and the way in which limited selective attention constrains the filter can be overcome to avail more parallel processing via techniques of display overlay and object display. In discussing the fuel for multi-tasking, we distinguish between the parallel processing supported by multiple resources, and the sequential processing and task switching required when demands are excessive.
... Horrey & Wickens, 2004) and partially automated driving (Spiessl & Hussmann, 2011). Although the theory originally focused on concurrent dual-tasking scenarios (as it is the case for manual driver distraction), it has also been applied for sequential multi-tasking, e.g. the interruptions paradigm (Ho, Nikolic, & Sarter, 2001;Ho, Nikolic, Waters, & Sarter, 2004;Latorella, 1998). This can be justified by the fundamental similarities of underlying cognitive mechanisms across different multitasking paradigms (c.f. ...
Thesis
The rise of automated driving will fundamentally change our mobility in the near future. This thesis specifically considers the stage of so called highly automated driving (Level 3, SAE International, 2014). At this level, a system carries out vehicle guidance in specific application areas, e.g. on highway roads. The driver can temporarily suspend from monitoring the driving task and might use the time by engaging in so called non-driving related tasks (NDR-tasks). However, the driver is still in charge to resume vehicle control when prompted by the system. This new role of the driver has to be critically examined from a human factors perspective. The main aim of this thesis was to systematically investigate the impact of different NDR-tasks on driver behavior and take-over performance. Wickens’ (2008) architecture of multiple resource theory was chosen as theoretical framework, with the building blocks of multiplicity (task interference due to resource overlap), mental workload (task demands), and aspects of executive control or self-regulation. Specific adaptations and extensions of the theory were discussed to account for the context of NDR-task interactions in highly automated driving. Overall four driving simulator studies were carried out to investigate the role of these theoretical components. Study 1 showed that drivers focused NDR-task engagement on sections of highly automated compared to manual driving. In addition, drivers avoided task engagement prior to predictable take-over situations. These results indicate that self-regulatory behavior, as reported for manual driving, also takes place in the context of highly automated driving. Study 2 specifically addressed the impact of NDR-tasks’ stimulus and response modalities on take-over performance. Results showed that particularly visual-manual tasks with high motoric load (including the need to get rid of a handheld object) had detrimental effects. However, drivers seemed to be aware of task specific distraction in take-over situations and strictly canceled visual-manual tasks compared to a low impairing auditory-vocal task. Study 3 revealed that also the mental demand of NDR-tasks should be considered for drivers’ take-over performance. Finally, different human-machine-interfaces were developed and evaluated in Simulator Study 4. Concepts including an explicit pre-alert (“notification”) clearly supported drivers’ self-regulation and achieved high usability and acceptance ratings. Overall, this thesis indicates that the architecture of multiple resource theory provides a useful framework for research in this field. Practical implications arise regarding the potential legal regulation of NDR-tasks as well as the design of elaborated human-machine-interfaces.
... Baltes & Baltes, 1989;Colligan & Bass, 2012). It can save a lot of time and effort (Colligan & Bass, 2012;Ho, Nikolic, Waters, & Sarter, 2004). Another important resource could be affective skills, which help to reduce the risk that stressors will lead to negative emotions (as proposed by socioemotional theorists; cf. ...
Article
Full-text available
In this study, we examined the within-person relationships between workday “cognitive” stressors (multitasking demands and workflow interruptions) and strain (situational well-being throughout the day and irritation in the evening). We hypothesized that occupational age, in terms of job tenure and an indicator of functional age (alertness), would moderate these relationships in that employees with low experience and low alertness would suffer most from the stressors. We conducted a 5-day diary study in a sample of 123 nurses, with 4 measurements per day (3 taken during the work shift and 1 taken in the evening), and 1 survey (occupational age) and computer-based cognitive performance test before the diary survey. Multilevel analyses showed that multitasking and workflow interruptions have detrimental effects on situational well-being and irritation. Occupational age and alertness moderated the relationships between multitasking demands and interruptions and irritation. Furthermore, occupational age and alertness moderated the relationships between interruptions, valence, and calmness. Additionally, occupational age and alertness moderated the relationships between multitasking demands and energetic arousal. Three-way interactions showed the predicted pattern. Alertness does make a difference in the coping of stressors for less experienced employees, but not for their more experienced colleagues. According to the findings, occupational experience seems to outweigh possible cognitive losses in alertness.
... cues have also been used to substitute/offload other modalities to help with overcoming difficulties related with data overload, presenting non-visual communication (Stanney, 2004), providing information that is confidential (Jones & Sarter, 2008), and aiding those with visual or hearing impairments (Kaczmarek & Bach-y-Rita, 1995). Finally, with respect to interruption management studies have looked at simple warnings and alerts (Sarter, 2006), effective means of attracting attention (Ho et al., 2004), providing transitions between complex tasks (Kontarinis, 1995), and general interruption management (Brewster & King, 2005). ...
Article
Full-text available
The expected air traffic growth will introduce new tasks and automation technologies. As a result, the amount of mostly visual cockpit information will increase significantly, leading to more interruptions and risk of data overload. One promising means of addressing this challenge is through the use of multimodal interfaces which distribute information across sensory channels. To inform the design of such interfaces, a meta-analysis was conducted on the effectiveness and performance effects of auditory versus tactile interruption signals. From the 23 studies, ratio scores were computed to compare performance between the two modalities. The impact of 6 moderator variables was also examined. Overall, this analysis shows faster responses to tactile interruptions. However, more complex and very urgent interruption signals are better presented via the auditory modality. The findings add to our knowledge base in multimodal information processing and can inform modality choices in display design for complex data-rich domains.
... A more promising alternative lies in the use of tactile feedback and combining it with other modalities. A study that provided users an indication of the modality and urgency of pending tasks, and that included visual, auditory, and tactile modalities found that operators dealt more effectively with interruptions of the auditory and tactile modalities, when information being communicated was additional to the main task (Ho, Nikolic, Waters, & Sarter, 2004). Another study compared distributing information across the tactile and visual modalities and also found that tactile-only and tactile-visual conditions led to higher detection rates and faster reaction times than those conditions that only used the visual modality (Sklar & Sarter, 1999). ...
... Further, strategies can be used to reduce mental demands after the occurrence of workflow interruptions. In experimental studies it was found that a delay in the accomplishment of interruptions leads to better performance (Ho et al., 2004). The time slot between the occurrence of an interruption (e.g. the sound of a telephone bell) and the accomplishment of the interruption (e.g. ...
Article
Full-text available
Understanding the mechanisms of workflow interruptions is crucial for reducing employee strain and maintaining performance. This study investigates how interruptions affect perceptions of performance and irritation by employing a within-person approach. Such interruptions refer to intruding secondary tasks, such as requests for assistance, which occur within the primary task. Based on empirical evidence and action theory, it is proposed that the occurrence of interruptions is negatively related to satisfaction with one's own performance and positively related to forgetting of intentions and the experience of irritation. Mental demands and time pressure are proposed as mediators. Data were gathered from 133 nurses in German hospitals by means of a five-day diary study (four measurements taken daily; three during a morning work shift and one after work, in the evening). Multilevel analyses showed that workflow interruptions had detrimental effects on satisfaction with one's own performance, the forgetting of intentions, and irritation. The mediation effects of mental demands and time pressure were supported for irritation and (partially) supported for satisfaction with performance. They were not supported for the forgetting of intentions. These findings demonstrate the importance of reducing the time and mental demands associated with interruptions.
... For instance, researchers have shown that the consequences of interruptions can include forgotten intentions, quantitative and qualitative deterioration of performance, time loss, and strain (Bailey & Konstan, 2006;Einstein et al., 2003;Grebner et al., 2003). In some work settings, interruptions even have been discovered to be risky due to enhanced likelihood of errors in very sensitive areas, such as air-traffic control or medication administration in hospitals (e.g., Balas, Scott, & Rogers, 2004;Ho, Nikolic, Waters, & Sarter, 2004). In cross-sectional studies, researchers have established positive relationships between work interruptions and depression, psychosomatic complaints, and burnout among different occupational groups (Grebner et al., 2003;Rout, Cooper, & Rout, 1996;Wülser, 2006). ...
Article
Full-text available
We propose a theoretical framework that explores the accumulation of work interruptions and their effects. Most research studies have dealt with interruptions as isolated phenomena, ignoring the simultaneous or sequential occurrence of interruptions common in everyday life. We fill this gap and provide insight into the process of the accumulation of interruptions by mapping deep-level regulation onto an observable sequence of actions. Furthermore, we explain how cumulative interruptions can lead to qualitatively different effects because of the interaction and joint development of isolated effects, identifying some mediating and moderating factors. In doing so, we disclose the relationships between the effects of single interruptions found in laboratory studies and the impacts on health and well-being of multiple interruptions found in applied research.
... A number of studies have investigated the benefits of scheduling interruptions so that they fall into subtask boundaries or other lulls in workload (Dabbish & Kraut, 2004; Iqbal & Bailey, 2006; McFarlane, 2002; Monk, Boehm-Davis, & Trafton, 2004). Others have investigated the benefits of various methods of conveying to users the urgency or priority of secondary tasks to try and help them optimize when to interrupt themselves (Ho, Nikolic, Waters, & Sarter, 2004; Patterson, WattsPerotti, & Woods, 1999; Sklar & Sarter, 1999; Sorkin, Kantowitz, & Kantowitz, 1988; Watson & Sanderson, 2004). Still others have investigated methods for preparing for interruptions—for example, taking notes and setting reminders about what the user was doing just prior to an interruption (e.g., Trafton, Altmann, & Brock, 2005; Trafton, Altmann, Brock, & Mintz, 2003 ). ...
Article
Dynamic operational tasks, such as airspace monitoring and civil emergency operations, require maintaining awareness of changing situations, in part by detecting and interpreting significant changes. Poor change detection ability makes this maintenance difficult enough while monitoring a situation display uninterrupted, but multi-tasking and interruptions increase the difficulty because the situation can change during the interruptions. Yet little research has addressed the need for better interface tools to help users detect and interpret changes, either to maintain situation awareness or to recover it following interruptions. The objective of this article is to present a prin-cipled, theoretical basis for designing interface tools that help users recover and maintain situation awareness in dynamic operational tasks. First, we present a framework for understanding the processes of interruption recovery during dynamic tasks within the broader context of interruption recovery generally. Then we briefly review a series of experiments, primarily from our own laboratory, from which we derive four design principles. Last, we contrast a number of interface designs in terms of the principles. Consideration of the four principles should facilitate the design of more effective tools to help users get back up to speed for these important and high-risk tasks.
Article
Owing to the increasing amount of information presented in the cockpit, the visual and hearing channels are unable to adequately transmit information, which may increase the mental load on pilots. This study explores the benefits of multimodal alarms under high and low residual capacities during take‐off in civil aircrafts in a quasi‐experimental study. The performance of two modes of multimodal (visual and auditory [VA], and visual, auditory, and tactile [VAT]) alarms were tested. The results showed that the VAT alarms were superior to the VA alarms in terms of choice response times (CRTs) when the participants were exposed to low residual capacities of vision and hearing. However, this effect was not observed when the participants had high residual capacities for vision and hearing. Thus, we considered that an additional tactile alarm could play a significant role in the CRTs when VA resources were consumed. There was no significant difference in the number of response errors between the three multimodal alarm modes. This study provides a key comparison of the two modes of multimodal alarms, indicating that VAT alarms are ideal for use in alarm design strategies for next‐generation civil cockpits.
Chapter
Information processing lies at the heart of human performance. This chapter describe the characteristics of the different important stages of information processing, from perception of the environment to acting on that environment. It begins by contrasting different ways in which information processing has been treated in applied psychology, and then describes processes and transformations related to attention, perception, memory and cognition, action selection, and multiple-task performance. The chapter adopts as a framework the information-processing model depicted. Stimuli or events are sensed and attended and that information received by the sensory system is perceived, that is, provided with some meaningful interpretation based on memory of past experience. The chapter also describes the means by which comprehension is achieved. It provides information on the unification subsystem, including the corpus of knowledge it requires and the operations it performs.
Chapter
In this chapter, we represent the pilot as an information processing system. We first describe breakdowns in pilot information processing as illustrated by four tragic accidents. We then present a framework for information processing and discuss how technological developments in aviation have influenced pilot information processing. Then, in separate sections we discuss information in aviation as applied to: •manual (flight) control, •communications & working memory, •performance measurement (the speed-accuracy tradeoff), •mental workload and SA, •attention in multi-tasking, •expertise, •decision making. Critical aspects of pilot visual attention, perception, and spatial cognition are described in Chapter 6, and more elaborate treatments of workload and situation awareness and of pilot DM are described in Chapters 7 and 21, respectively.
Chapter
Digital systems, such as phones, computers and PDAs, place continuous demands on our cognitive and perceptual systems. They offer information and interaction opportunities well above our processing abilities, and often interrupt our activity. Appropriate allocation of attention is one of the key factors determining the success of creative activities, learning, collaboration, and many other human pursuits. This book presents research related to human attention in digital environments. Original contributions by leading researchers cover the conceptual framework of research aimed at modelling and supporting human attentional processes, the theoretical and software tools currently available, and various application areas. The authors explore the idea that attention has a key role to play in the design of future technology and discuss how such technology may continue supporting human activity in environments where multiple devices compete for people's limited cognitive resources.
Chapter
Digital systems, such as phones, computers and PDAs, place continuous demands on our cognitive and perceptual systems. They offer information and interaction opportunities well above our processing abilities, and often interrupt our activity. Appropriate allocation of attention is one of the key factors determining the success of creative activities, learning, collaboration, and many other human pursuits. This book presents research related to human attention in digital environments. Original contributions by leading researchers cover the conceptual framework of research aimed at modelling and supporting human attentional processes, the theoretical and software tools currently available, and various application areas. The authors explore the idea that attention has a key role to play in the design of future technology and discuss how such technology may continue supporting human activity in environments where multiple devices compete for people's limited cognitive resources.
Conference Paper
Many categories of manager decision-making (human organisations, environmental systems, supply chains) are in some way or another related to systems. However, system dynamics do not always lend themselves well to superficial, or intuitive, interpretation. This can inadvertently result in suboptimal managerial decision-making. The application of control science concepts for guiding managerial decision-making has the potential to improve results. The contemporary manager is typically resource-constrained and time-stressed. Controlscience- based decision-making guidance that does not accommodate the reality of the manager’s time constraints may have limited affect in practice. A manager’s attention-scheduling behaviour is more analogous to that of a networked control system (NCS) than to that of a singularly focused control loop. There is an opportunity to apply NCS aspects of control science to identify the minimum attention/frequency requirements of key decision-making realms. This paper acknowledges the time-poor reality of the contemporary manager. It considers how learnings from NCS theory can be applied to add resilience and efficiency to control-science-inspired improvements to manager decision-making. Just as regulatory control systems don’t perform well when subjected to unexpected network or input/output delays, the application of control theory concepts to manager decision-making will be challenged if the time-poor aspects of the manager are not catered for.
Article
A systematic review was conducted to examine the effects of interventions aimed at reducing the negative consequences of interruptions on task performance. Medline, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, and the ABI/INFORM Collection were searched for relevant publications. Thirty-three laboratory-based experiments, containing 49 interventions, were reviewed. Seven types of interventions were identified. Overall, the use of interventions significantly increased primary task accuracy (standardized mean difference (SMD) = 1.03, P = 0.001) and reduced resumption lag (SMD = −0.51, P < 0.001), whereas no significant difference was observed for interrupting task accuracy. Subgroup analyses indicated that intervention effects varied by (i) the type of intervention and (ii) the type of primary task (procedural, decision-making, or problem-solving tasks). The narrative synthesis provided additional evidence regarding interruption lag and time spent on a primary task. In sum, this review identified the types of interventions that were particularly effective and provided implications for application and further investigation.
Chapter
We conducted a study to evaluate the user-friendliness of different pitches of auditory cues in autonomous vehicle scenarios under the objective and subjective evaluation criteria. First, we designed 6 different pitches of cues to test how intuitive they are at learning and how accurate they are at matching 6 emergency levels. And then we carried out a survey using a questionnaire to collect subjective preference for these pitches. Finally, experimental results demonstrated that the lowest and highest pitches were more intuitive in learning, while those in the middle range required more effort to match and were more likely to cause errors in recognition. The subjective preference showed that cues with relatively low and high pitches received the most popularity from participants. And cues with higher pitches were often more interrupting, and occupied more attention. Combining the results of objective test and subjective preference, we believed that the pitches in the middle range were less user-friendly than the lower and higher ones.
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Multi-modal displays that allow the locomotive engineer to delay safety-critical dispatches in high workload scenarios offer the promise of reducing the cognitive distraction that occurs when the locomotive engineer must listen to a dispatcher’s communication. In an effort to determine whether locomotive engineers could delay safety-critical information from the dispatcher in high workload scenarios, we developed and evaluated such a multi-modal display system. It was hypothesized that locomotive engineers, when provided with the ability to postpone the delivery of information from the dispatcher, would perform better than locomotive engineers who were not provided that capability. Contrary to the above hypothesis, an analysis of the eye tracking measures indicated that the engineers performed more poorly in the multi-modal display system condition, indicating that the system as designed did not allow the engineer to safely delay dispatch messages. We conclude that aspects of the new system that seemed to increase distraction should be redesigned to modify how and when the engineer uses the system to access information and allow for a safe delay of safety-critical information.
Conference Paper
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Intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) are supposed to help us multitask. Yet the impact of IPA use on multitasking is not clearly quantified, particularly in situations where primary tasks are also language based. Using a dual task paradigm, our study observes how IPA interactions impact two different types of writing primary tasks; copying and generating content. We found writing tasks that involve content generation, which are more cognitively demanding and share more of the resources needed for IPA use, are significantly more disrupted by IPA interaction than less demanding tasks such as copying content. We discuss how theories of cognitive resources, including multiple resource theory and working memory, explain these results. We also outline the need for future work how interruption length and relevance may impact primary task performance as well as the need to identify effects of interruption timing in user and IPA led interruptions.
Conference Paper
We investigate interruptions of head-mounted display (HMD) users by people not wearing an HMD (bystanders). At the focus of our work we explore whether bystanders can identify task switches of the HMD user and, hence, opportune moments for interruptions. In particular, we compare 5 tasks in AR (top) and VR (bottom) : authentication (A), reading (B), manipulation (C), typing (D), and watching a video (E). ABSTRACT Head-mounted displays (HMDs) are being used for VR and AR applications and increasingly permeate our everyday life. At the same time, a detailed understanding of interruptions in settings where people wearing an HMD (HMD user) and people not wearing an HMD (bystander) is missing. We investigate (a) whether bystanders are capable of identifying when HMD users switch tasks by observing their gestures, and hence exploit opportune moments for interruptions, and (b) which strategies bystanders employ. In a lab study (N=64) we found that bystanders are able to successfully identify both task switches (83%) and tasks (77%) within only a few seconds of the task switch. Furthermore, we identified interruption strategies of bystanders. From our results we derive implications meant to support designers and practitioners in building HMD applications that are used in a co-located collaborative setting.
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This study aimed to analyze aircraft ground operation processes from a human factors perspective with special emphases on the occurrence and influence of interruptions on pilots’ workload. Interruptions have been shown to increase workload and error probability as well as to contribute to fatal accidents in various fields. Countermeasures have been initiated especially in high-risk environments such as those involving medical issues. In aviation, more explicitly during turn-around processes, interruptions might occur frequently and impair flight safety. One hundred and sixty fully certified pilots working for a European airline were observed during their turn-around while performing real operations. Pilots’ interruptions were documented and classified in order to predict subjectively perceived workload by use of multiple linear regression analysis. External factors such as weather conditions, technical problems, and time pressure were considered as covariates. On average, a pilot experienced about eight interruptions during a turn-around. Overall workload estimates showed a level comparable to that of manual flying in a simulator. Interruptions from colleagues or from outside the cockpit were found to predict pilots’ workload; however, further external factors such as poor weather conditions impacted workload even more strongly. We suggest two approaches based on our results to handling the high rate of interruptions. We first recommend procedural changes to diminish the interruption rate; second, we recommend comprehensive, line-oriented flight training for airline and ground staff to raise awareness about the negative influence of interruptions.
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This discussion panel will focus on solutions for mitigating the negative impact of interruptions in healthcare. Five human factors practitioners who work within healthcare systems will present solutions of mitigating the negative impact of interruptions on safety and quality with the acknowledgement that interruptions in and of themselves should not be viewed as purely negative (i.e. some interruptions are not only necessary but beneficial to patient care). Additionally, one panelist will focus on the difficulties in bridging the gap between research and practice in this arena. The session will lead to an interactive discussion about how human factors methods can be adapted and applied to identify and develop realistic, impactful solutions that improve safety by eliminating the negative impact of interruptions in applied healthcare settings.
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One long-standing perspective on the relationship between cognition and design is that people have severe limits on their memory, attention, and problem-solving capabilities. People are prone to illusions and biases of many kinds. In this view, design then would use new technological capabilities to develop prostheses that overcome the inherent weaknesses of people. Depending on the machine’s assessment of how people’s mental or physical state is changing, the machine will decide when and how to change the interface and change user tasks so that the demands remain within people’s limited capabilities. This chapter discusses connecting design with cognition at work. It provides an introduction to some of the basic concepts about design and cognition, which can help design processes to enable or release human expertise. Technology change and new designs are one set of drivers in these processes of organizational transformation and human adaptation. The changes that are triggered result in new levels of performance on some dimensions, new squeezes on performance in other places, new side effects when things that were separate become connected, and new forms of complexity. In adaptive cycles, designs act as stimulants in two major ways. Designs can trigger expansive adaptations by users and stakeholders that exploit capabilities as they seek to achieve their ends. When these expansive adaptations occur, one discovers that people have exploited designs in ways typically unforeseen by the designers. But design change also can introduce impediments that create complexities to be adapted around and overcome—the workarounds often captured in compilations of designs with poor usability. Though specific designs often create a mix of both affordances to be exploited and complexities to be worked around, this mix can vary greatly for different people in different roles across an organization.
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We describe a computational model that predicts the decision aspect of sequential multitasking. We investigate how people choose to switch tasks or continue performing an ongoing task when they are in overload conditions where concurrent performance of tasks is impossible. The model is based on a metaanalytic integration of 46 experiments from two literatures: interruption management and applied task switching. Consistent trends from the meta-analysis are used to set parameters in the mathematical model, which is then implemented in a task network model.
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Interruptions in time-critical, dynamic and collaborative environments, such as Air Traffic Control (ATC), can provide valuable, task-relevant information. However, they also negatively impact task performance by distracting the operator from on-going tasks and consuming “attention resources”. It is hypothesized that operators in these environments could better manage when interruptions occur if there were indications of the availability of a collaborator and the priority of an interruption. The Working Awareness Interruption Tool (WAIT) is being developed to support more efficient and appropriate interruption timing in the context of complex, real-time, distributed, human operator interactions. Prototypes for application in operational ATC displays are presented as well as techniques used to develop the design requirements. Feedback on the initial prototypes was solicited through a Participatory Design (PD) interview process with air traffic controllers. The implications of the findings for the feasibility of an interruption awareness tool in real ATC environments are discussed.
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A prototype of Human Machine Interface (HMI) used to de- liver information to the driver in cars is described in this paper. The de- livery of information is based on the Informative Interruptive Cue (IIC) approach. The interface is a matrix of 4 x 3 vibrating motors, controlled through a real-time algorithm based on apparent motion and phantom illusion to create continuous and discrete tactile patterns. A first exper- iment was conducted with 22 participants to examine their ability to discriminate the tactile patterns displayed by the interface placed on the back of a chair. Results showed 61.48% successful recognition of tactile stimuli. A second experiment based on a free categorisation of the hap- tic stimuli was performed with another set of 20 participants. The goal was to understand the dimensions of the conceptual space chosen by the participants when telling tactile stimuli apart. Outcomes suggest that parameters such as speed, movement continuity and complexity are used for grouping.
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Even as simulation use in health care education has proliferated, there are terms used in simulation design that often lack clarity, in particular fidelity and cueing. To gain a better understanding of these terms, this article reports a systematic review of the literature for attributes and definitions of fidelity and cueing. Inclusion criteria included theoretical, educational, and empirical literature across disciplines that use simulation for educational or training purposes. Excluded w\ere publications with a nonhuman, noneducational, or primary or secondary school focus. Search strategies yielded 248 publications of which 13 met inclusion criteria. Results indicate fidelity is a multidimensional concept forming a matrix comprising physical, psychological, and conceptual dimensions. Cueing comprises two types, reality and conceptual cues, with mode of delivery enacted via equipment, environment, or patient and role characters. The article offers implications for simulation design considering the attributes of fidelity and cueing.
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Determining how the controller (or air navigation service provider) of the future will function in tomorrow's Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) will require an understanding of the existing literature. In this chapter, after an analysis of the controller's job, we focus on technology, which is an important factor in air traffic control (ATC) today and will become increasingly so in NextGen. We then turn to workload and the extent to which it can be predicted. From human-technology interaction and workload, we move to the multiple facets of cognition thought to underlie these and other aspects of the controller's job. Beyond individual cognition, we review collaboration among controllers and discuss both synchronous cooperation and the cooperative shift change. As we move up the system, we look at error, risk, and safety. Finally, we consider the work on controller selection, covering both “select-in” (KSAOs) and “select-out” (e.g., medical and suitability) factors. For NextGen to be successful, human factors researchers must determine from today's research how the human operator can best function to provide ATC services in the future.
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The aim of this study was to integrate empirical data showing the effects of interrupting task modality on the performance of an ongoing visual-manual task and the interrupting task itself. The goal is to support interruption management and the design of multimodal interfaces. Multimodal interfaces have been proposed as a promising means to support interruption management.To ensure the effectiveness of this approach, their design needs to be based on an analysis of empirical data concerning the effectiveness of individual and redundant channels of information presentation. Three meta-analyses were conducted to contrast performance on an ongoing visual task and interrupting tasks as a function of interrupting task modality (auditory vs. tactile, auditory vs. visual, and single modality vs. redundant auditory-visual). In total, 68 studies were included and six moderator variables were considered. The main findings from the meta-analyses are that response times are faster for tactile interrupting tasks in case of low-urgency messages.Accuracy is higher with tactile interrupting tasks for low-complexity signals but higher with auditory interrupting tasks for high-complexity signals. Redundant auditory-visual combinations are preferable for communication tasks during high workload and with a small visual angle of separation. The three meta-analyses contribute to the knowledge base in multimodal information processing and design. They highlight the importance of moderator variables in predicting the effects of interruption task modality on ongoing and interrupting task performance. The findings from this research will help inform the design of multimodal interfaces in data-rich, event-driven domains.
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Research in Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) has successfully identified basic requirements that must be met if new technology will be useful to practitioners in context. Synthesizing these basic requirements or support functionsis part of a process of debate and consolidationof the foundations of the field after 25 years of productive activity (Klein, 1999; Endsley et al., 2003; Hollnageland Woods, 2005). This work takes the "Laws that Govern Cognitive Work" which synthesize basic findings aand patterns (Woods, 2002; Hoffman and Woods, 2005) and provides the next step-a set of basic requirements or support functions for design. General requirements for effective support can be used to jump start individual development projects in any domain. Debating how to achieve these support functions helps translate the insights of cognitive work analyses into tangible new uses of technological possibilities.
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This chapter sets about to provide the background and orientation needed to set a novice designer on his or her way to bringing haptics successfully into an interactive product. To define appropriate roles for haptic interaction, it is necessary to integrate a basic awareness of human capabilities on one hand and current device technology on the other. Here, I explore this integration by first summarizing the most salient constraints imposed by both humans and hardware. I then proceed to relate perceptual, motor, and attentional capabilities to a selection of emerging application contexts chosen to be relevant to contemporary design trends and opportunities. These include abstract communication and notification, augmentation of graphical user interfaces, expressive control, affective communication, and mobile and handheld computing.
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Operators in many complex event-driven domains face the challenge of data overload. Two major contributors to this problem are over-reliance in display design on one sensory channel (vision in most domains) and the fact that the presentation of data and information does not vary to account for changing task contexts and operator states. These problems call for the introduction of context-sensitive multimodal displays. There is a substantial and growing body of research on multisensory information processing and presentation. However, little guidance is available for the design of flexible displays that take context into consideration. Two important research questions are: 1) who should be in control of the adaptation of information presentation - the user or the system, or perhaps both? - and b) what factors should drive display adaptation? This article will review two approaches to context-sensitive display design: adaptive and adaptable. The benefits and disadvantages of each approach will be discussed, and a recently developed hybrid adaptive-adaptable multimodal interface will be described. To our knowledge, this is the first display design that combines both approaches to context-sensitivity and employs a wide range of drivers, ranging from environmental conditions to operator states and performance.
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Dynamic operational tasks, such as airspace monitoring and civil emergency operations, require maintaining awareness of changing situations, in part by detecting and interpreting significant changes. Poor change detection ability makes this maintenance difficult enough while monitoring a situation display uninterrupted, but multitasking and interruptions increase the difficulty because the situation can change during the interruptions. Yet little research has addressed the need for better interface tools to help users detect and interpret changes, either to maintain situation awareness or to recover it following interruptions. The objective of this article is to present a principled, theoretical basis for designing interface tools that help users recover and maintain situation awareness in dynamic operational tasks. First, we present a framework for understanding the processes of interruption recovery during dynamic tasks within the broader context of interruption recovery generally. Then we briefly review a series of experiments, primarily from our own laboratory, from which we derive four design principles. Last, we contrast a number of interface designs in terms of the principles. Consideration of the four principles should facilitate the design of more effective tools to help users get back up to speed for these important and high-risk tasks.
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The majority of empirical papers investigating the effect of interruption modality on primary task resumption have been grounded in Multiple Resource theory; this theory stresses the benefits of cross- modal information presentation. Alternatively, Altmann and Trafton's (2002) Memory for Goals theory suggests that maintaining an association between the suspended primary task goal and relevant environmental cues is critical to the task resumption process. Using reaction time and eye movement measures, the theoretical predictions of these two frameworks were empirically examined to determine whether interruption modality influences primary task resumption.
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At first glance it seems absurd that busy people doing important jobs should want their computers to interrupt them. Interruptions are disruptive and people need to concentrate to make good decisions. However, successful job perfor- mance also frequently depends on people's abilities to (a) constantly monitor their dynamically changing information environments, (b) collaborate and communi- cate with other people in the system, and (c) supervise background autonomous services. These critical abilities can require people to simultaneously query a large set of information sources, continuously monitor for important events, and re- spond to and communicate with other human operators. Automated monitoring
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This paper uses results of held studies from multiple domains to explore the cognitive activities involved in dynamic fault management. Fault diagnosis has a different character in dynamic fault management situations as compared to troubleshooting a broken device that has been removed from service. In fault management there is some underlying process (an engineered or physiological process that will be referred to as the monitored process) whose state changes over time. Faults disturb the monitored process and diagnosis goes on in parallel with responses to maintain process integrity and to correct the underlying problem. These situations frequently involve time pressure, multiple interacting goals, high consequences of failure, and multiple interleaved tasks. Typical examples of fields of practice where dynamic fault management occurs include flight deck operations in commercial aviation, control of space systems, anaesthetic management under surgery, and terrestrial process control. The point of departure is the 'alarm problem', which is used to introduce an attentional view of alarm systems as tools for supporting dynamic fault management. The work is based on the concept of directed attention-a cognitive function that inherently involves the co-ordination of multiple agents through the use of external media. Directed attention suggests several techniques for developing more effective alarm systems.
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Externally-imposed tasks frequently interrupt ongoing task performance in the commercial flight deck. While normally managed without consequence, basic research as well as aviation accident and incident investigations show that interruptions can negatively affect performance and safety. This research investigates the influence of interruption and interrupted task modality on pilot performance in a simulated commercial flight deck. Fourteen current commercial airline pilots performed approach scenarios in a fixed-base flight simulator. Air traffic control instructions, conveyed either aurally or visually (via a data link system) interrupted a visual task (obtaining information from the Flight Management System) and an auditory task (listening to the automated terminal information service recording). Some results confirm the hypothesized performance advantage of cross-modality conditions, more compelling nature of auditory interruptions, and interruption-resistance of auditory ongoing tasks. However, taken together, results suggest the four interaction conditions had different effects on pilot performance. These results have implications for the design of data link systems, and for facilitating interruption management through interface design, aiding, and training programs.
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This paper presents the results of a mathematical modeling (computer simulation) effort that applied frame-based, data processing constructs, originally developed and applied in the context of artificial intelligence, to the decomposition of a complex Air Force bomber mission. The model was written in LISP to facilitate the development of a concurrent processing environment in which to simulate the simultaneous occurrence of multiple external events/crew tasks. The model simulated a four hour segment of a strategic mission scenario. Two distinct crew complements, four-man and two-man, together with their respective levels of aircraft avionics automation, were represented during a proof-of-concept demonstration. The model provided measures of resource (crew and “black box”) utilization, presumed to correlate to “workload,” at different levels of specificity. These measures were used to identify crew task “chokepoints” (large queue sizes, task interrupts) and to evaluate the effects of automation.
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Cockpit Task Management (CTM) is the process by which pilots selectively attend to tasks in such a way as to achieve their mission goal. Through our research we have found that CTM is a significant factor in flight safety, at least partly accounting for a substantial number of aircraft incidents and accidents. We developed an experimental knowledge-based system called the AgendaManager to facilitate Agenda Management (a superset of CTM) and demonstrated its superiority to a conventional crew monitoring and alerting system in a controlled evaluation study. The success of the Agenda-Manager is attributable not to its use of artificial intelligence technology. Rather, it is effective because it was developed using a sound human factors research and development approach. This approach and its application in AgendaManager development are the topics of this paper. © 1999 by SAE International, and the American Institute in Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Classic work on interruptions by Zeigarnik showed that tasks that were interrupted were more likely to be recalled after a delay than tasks that were not interrupted. Much of the literature on interruptions has been devoted to examining this effect, although more recently interruptions have been used to choose between competing designs for interfaces to complex devices. However, none of this work looks at what makes some interruptions disruptive and some not. This series of experiments uses a novel computer-based adventure-game methodology to investigate the effects of the length of the interruption, the similarity of the interruption to the main task, and the complexity of processing demanded by the interruption. It is concluded that subjects make use of some form of non-articulatory memory which is not affected by the length of the interruption. It is affected by processing similar material however, and by a complex mentalarithmetic task which makes large demands on working memory.
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In a likelihood alarm display (LAD) information about event likelihood is computed by an automated monitoring system and encoded into an alerting signal for the human operator. Operator performance within a dual-task paradigm was evaluated with two LADs: a color-coded visual alarm and a linguistically coded synthetic speech alarm. The operator's primary task was one of tracking; the secondary task was to monitor a four-element numerical display and determine whether the data arose from a 'signal' or 'no-signal' condition. A simulated 'intelligent' monitoring system alerted the operator to the likelihood of a signal. The results indicated that (1) automated monitoring systems can improve performance on primary and secondary tasks; (2) LADs can improve the allocation of attention among tasks and provide information integrated into operator decisions; and (3) LADs do not necessarily add to the operator's attentional load.
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Observed breakdowns in human-machine communication can be explained, in part, by the nature of current automation feedback, which relies heavily on focal visual attention. Such feedback is not well suited for capturing attention in case of unexpected changes and events or for supporting the parallel processing of large amounts of data in complex domains. As suggested by multiple-resource theory, one possible solution to this problem is to distribute information across various sensory modalities. A simulator study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of visual, tactile, and redundant visual and tactile cues for indicating unexpected changes in the status of an automated cockpit system. Both tactile conditions resulted in higher detection rates for, and faster response times to, uncommanded mode transitions. Tactile feedback did not interfere with, nor was its effectiveness affected by, the performance of concurrent visual tasks. The observed improvement in task-sharing performance indicates that the introduction of tactile feedback is a promising avenue toward better supporting human-machine communication in event-driven, information-rich domains.