In a meta-analysis of 43 studies, we examined the effects of multimodal feedback on user performance, comparing visualauditory and visual-tactile feedback to visual feedback alone. Results indicate that adding an additional modality to visual feedback improves performance overall. Both visual-auditory feedback and visual-tactile feedback provided advantages in reducing reaction times and improving performance scores, but were not effective in reducing error rates. Effects are moderated by task type, workload, and number of tasks. Visual-auditory feedback is most effective when a single task is being performed (g = .87), and under normal workload conditions (g = .71). Visual-tactile feedback is more effective when multiple tasks are begin performed (g = .77) and workload conditions are high (g = .84). Both types of multimodal feedback are effective for target acquisition tasks; but vary in effectiveness for other task types. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

In this paper, we present three field-based evaluations of a tactile land navigation system. In Experiment 1, we transition from a laboratory setting to rugged terrain used to train US Army soldier land navigation. Navigation in this challenging terrain requires careful attention to one's surroundings. Participants navigated 3 waypoints along 600 meters through heavily wooded terrain, using 1) map and compass, 2) standard alpha-numeric handheld GPS device, and 3) the tactile GPS system, while also responding to radio requests for information. Experiment 2 used the same challenging terrain during night operations, where participants must also search for live and silhouette targets, using 1) handheld GPS device, 2) head-mounted map-based GPS, and 3) the tactile GPS system. In addition to navigating, participants searched for silhouette and live (human) targets. Experiment 3 had participants navigate with 1) a commercial GPS arrow display, 2) the tactile GPS system, and 3) both together. We conclude that tactile navigation displays can be used in strenuous outdoor environments and can outperform visual displays under conditions of high cognitive and visual workload.

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (0704-0188), 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. PLEASE DO NOT RETURN YOUR FORM TO THE ABOVE ADDRESS. REPORT DATE (DD-MM-YYYY) May 20072. REPORT TYPE ARL-SR-0152 SPONSOR/MONITOR'S ACRONYM(S) 9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) SPONSOR/MONITOR'S REPORT NUMBERS DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENTApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTESAddress correspondence to Elizabeth Redden, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, USAIC HRED Field Element, ATTN AMSRD-ARL-HR-MW, Bldg 4, Room 332, Fort Benning, GA 31905; elizabeth.redden@benning.army.mil. ABSTRACTThis report is a consolidated description of past work performed to develop the University of Central Florida's tactile belt display system and to evaluate its potential for use as a covert means of communication to the individual warfighter. Previously, the results from these evaluations were distributed as technical reports, meeting presentations, and live demonstrations spanning the past several years. This report documents the full body of work and combines it into one document. Researchers expected the use of tactile displays to reduce demands on and interference with the Soldiers' overtaxed visual and auditory channels, thereby improving overall performance capacity and mission readiness. As part of the development process, tactile system characteristics were reviewed and assessed to ensure system effectiveness. Several studies were performed to determine optimal system characteristics. After an effective system was developed, it was evaluated for military applications such as covert communication and target cuing in realistic mission context. This report contains these studies and documents the tactile belt display system's effect on Soldier performance. Today's Soldier receives information from many sources, but comprehension is limited by the constraints imposed by the equipment itself, the medium of transmission, and human information processing. Despite technological advances, the battlefield continues to overwhelm the Soldier's primary sources of input (namely, the eyes and ears) by sheer volume or by obscuring or distorting sights and sounds. In fact, display signals themselves can block environmental cues, emit s...

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.ii REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE Form Approved OMB No. 0704-0188Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (0704-0188), 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. PLEASE DO NOT RETURN YOUR FORM TO THE ABOVE ADDRESS. REPORT DATE (DD-MM-YYYY) May 20082. REPORT TYPE ARL-TR-4457 SPONSOR/MONITOR'S ACRONYM(S) 9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) SPONSOR/MONITOR'S REPORT NUMBERS DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENTApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited.. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES ABSTRACTThis study, conducted at Fort Benning, Georgia, was an operational investigation of tele-operation control performance with the use of three different robotic control devices. Twelve Soldiers from the Officers' Candidate School and three Soldiers from Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment served as participants. Before any training, Soldiers provided an initial evaluation of the intuitiveness of controller features. After training in the operation of the IRobot PackBot Robot system, each Soldier completed a driving course using three different controller types. Controller A was the largest of the three controllers and each control manipulation had a single function. Both controller A and controller B had a similar number of single-function controls; however, controller B's controls were laid in a different configuration and were smaller than controller A's. Controller C had the fewest controls and the controls were multi-functional. Soldiers were tasked to drive the robot and to perform operations such as surveillance using the robotic arm. We measured workload for each controller was measured by having the Soldiers complete the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Task Load Index survey after they used each controller type. Controller type and usability were evaluated, based on objective performance data, data collector observations, and Soldier questionnaires. The multifunctional controller was reported to be more difficult to learn and use than the controller with reduced control sizes because switching between functions was time consuming and confusing. This difficulty increased perceived workload. Soldiers also found that several robotic control functions (e.g., raising ...

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.ii REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE Form Approved OMB No. 0704-0188Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (0704-0188), 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. PLEASE DO NOT RETURN YOUR FORM TO THE ABOVE ADDRESS. REPORT DATE (DD-MM-YYYY)June 2006 ARL-TR-3814 SPONSOR/MONITOR'S ACRONYM(S) 9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) SPONSOR/MONITOR'S REPORT NUMBERS DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENTApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited.. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES ABSTRACTThis study compared a tactile land navigation system to two operational systems with visual information displays. "Front end" workload and task analyses identified land navigation as having high and conflicting workload. The tactile display was expected to ameliorate the high visual and cognitive workload per Multiple Resource Theory (Wickens, 2002). Fifteen infantry Soldiers navigated three equivalent 1800-meter routes using each of three systems: (a) the personal tactile navigator (PTN) tactile system, (b) the U.S. Army precision lightweight GPS (global positioning system) receiver (PLGR), which is a hand-held GPS with an alpha-numeric display, and (c) the traditional compass system. Note: Each soldier traversed each lane with different navigation systems; we counterbalanced the order in which they used the systems and the lanes that were walked with each system in order to control for any effects attributable to order (such as fatigue) or to the lane itself.The PLGR system was predicted to enhance performance relative to the compass system because of reduced cognitive demands. The PTN system was predicted to enhance performance relative to both PLGR and compass systems because of (a) reduced cognitive demand from more intuitive display (e.g., following direction of tactor) and (b) off load from visual attention demand. Soldiers performed more quickly and accurately when using the PLGR and tactile systems, relative to a compass. However, there was no significant difference between GPS and tactile systems. This is likely because of the low need for focal visual attention during navigation in this experiment; there was not as much interference with the occasional use of a visual display. However, visual attention demand increa...

No abstract

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.ii REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE Form Approved OMB No. 0704-0188Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (0704-0188), 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.ii REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE Form Approved OMB No. 0704-0188Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (0704-0188), 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. PLEASE DO NOT RETURN YOUR FORM TO THE ABOVE ADDRESS. REPORT DATE (DD-MM-YYYY)April 2012 ARL-TR-5989 SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSOR/MONITOR'S ACRONYM(S) SPONSOR/MONITOR'S REPORT NUMBER(S) DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENTApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES ABSTRACTThis experiment is the third in a series to investigate scaling robotic controllers for use by dismounted warfighters. A 2 × 2 within-subjects design crossing two controllers (game controller [GC] and virtual joystick [VJ]) with two levels of robotic autonomy (manual control [MC] and click to navigate [CN]) was used. Twenty-two Soldiers conducted reconnaissance tasks on a 200-m course. As a secondary task, Soldiers were told to report course times when prompted. Neither the main effects for controller nor autonomy were statistically significant for driving errors or the number of unexploded ordnance rounds detected, nor were the controller and autonomy interactions. There was a significant controller and autonomy interaction regarding secondary task performance. With the CN feature, there was no significant difference in the efficiency of task performance between the GC and VJ. When using MC, the Soldiers' secondary task performance was significantly more efficient with the VJ than with the GC because the GC required two hands for operation. However, the participants generally preferred the GC over the VJ; the VJ required visual attention because it provided no haptic feedback. They also preferred MC to CN. Suggestions are offered for improving the design of both types of controllers. iii SUBJECT TERMS