The effect of auditory alerts on the performance of concurrent tasks

This paper reports results from an on-going study of the effectiveness of different kinds of aviation-based auditory alerts and the alerts’ effect on the performance of other, unrelated tasks. Participants engage in tracking, gauge/light monitoring, and resource management tasks while completing a separate auditory alert identification task. Preliminary results from this multi-task approach suggest that identification responses to auditory icons are more accurate and faster than responses to tonal patterns, and secondary tasks may experience less disruption in the presence of icons than tones. In addition, the evaluation method may be used to predict the effectiveness of alerts, regardless of environment.