Maintaining Vigilance with Auditory and Visual Cues in Command and Control Environments

Abstract

The current study evaluates the use of auditory and visual stimuli as cues to prompt the shift of attention between small screen and large screen displays in a Command and Control (C2) environment. The use of spatial audio displays has been shown to reduce workload and improve target detection times. This design employed a two-screen model with multiple targets as well as a multimodal cuing strategy. Ten participants completed eight monitoring task sessions consisting of four different cuing conditions: no cuing, auditory cuing, visual cuing, and combined auditory and visual cuing. Reaction times and accuracy rates, in addition to perceived workload and preference, were compared across all four conditions. It was found that visual cues, auditory cues, and the combined presentation of visual and auditory cues, resulted in faster response times when compared to no cuing. No differences were found between prompting types. The findings of this study apply to the C2 environment, as well as other multi-task environments that may require time-sensitive responses to events and information represented on multiple visual displays.