Citation

Ulfvengren P. Hum. Factors Aerosp. Safety 2003; 3(4): 313-331.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Ashgate Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Auditory alerts with improved design have potential to increase safety in aviation by not require pilots to look for information of a particular auditory alert, think twice about which alert is which and to perform decision making in a cacophony of alerts. These 'associability' studies compare required cognitive effort to associate a sound to an assigned meaning. Seven categories of sound, each with 10 sounds, are assigned to 10 alert functions. The categories were: spoken words and synonyms, auditory icons (Gaver, 1989), animal sounds, aircraft and helicopter alerts, and attensons (Patterson, 1982). The auditory icons needed very little learning. It was easier to associate the animal sounds to alert functions than the abstract sounds. The attensons, developed to be ergonomic, due to their complexity did surprisingly poor. Real, complex, easily identified and familiar sounds have highest associability. Associability is an important cognitive aspect in auditory alerts design.