Auditory Preemption versus Multiple Resources: Who Wins in Interruption Management?

Abstract

We examined the effects of modality (auditory versus visual) and spatial separation when a simulated vehicle control (tracking) task (the ongoing task: OT) was time shared with a digit entry task (the interrupting task: IT), contrasting the predictions of auditory preemption theory with that of multiple resource theory. Participants performed the tracking task with auditory display of the phone numbers, or with visual display at eccentricities ranging from 0 deg (overlay) to 45 deg. Auditory input improved IT performance relative to visual, but disrupted OT performance, thereby supporting the role of auditory preemption. This cost did not grow with longer messages. In contrast, at eccentricities above 15 deg, auditory superiority emerged for both tasks, highlighting the role of multiple resources, and separation produced greater costs to the OT than to the IT. Therefore, both discrete tasks, and auditory delivery have inherent preemptive effects on the continuous visual OT. The results are also interpreted in the context of the non-linear costs to dual task performance with increasing separation from the eye-field to the headfield, and the support for different visual hemi-fields for concurrent processing of verbal and ambient spatial information.

Evaluating informative auditory and tactile cues for in-vehicle information systems

“…Therefore, the effectiveness of our cues needs to be evaluated in various conditions. Sound has been a preferred modality for alerts and interruption cues [25]. However, in environments with rich surrounding sounds, sound cues can go unnoticed.…”

Cognitive-Aware Modality Allocation in Intelligent Multimodal Information Presentation

“…This feature makes auditory modalities a preferred choice to present information with high priorities, such as warnings and alerts [55]. The risk of using auditory modalities is that they might interrupt an ongoing task by pulling full attention away from it, referred to as "auditory preemption" [62]. Second, unlike visual information which needs to be in the visual field in order to be attended to, auditory information can grab attention no matter which direction it comes from, and its direction can be distinguished if perceived by both ears.…”

Multimodal information presentation for high load human computer interaction

“…In addition, speech has been found to have a 'preemption effect' on driving [282], which means it keeps drivers' attention and temporarily suppresses driving. This effect gets stronger when the spoken sentence gets longer.…”

“…Although sound has been a preferred modality for alerts and interruption cues [282], sound cues can go unnoticed in environments with rich surrounding sounds. In such situations, the tactile modality may be more effective for cue delivery [213; 225].…”

“…This feature makes auditory modalities a preferred choice to present information with high priorities, such as warnings and alerts [239]. The risk of using auditory modalities is that they might interrupt an ongoing task by pulling full attention away from it, referred to as 'auditory preemption' [282]. Second, unlike visual information which needs to be in the visual field in order to be attended to, auditory information can grab attention no matter which direction it comes from, and its direction can be distinguished if perceived by both ears.…”