3D Audio Cueing for Target Identification in a Simulated Flight Task

Abstract

Modern Traffic Advisory Systems (TAS) can increase flight safety by providing pilots with real-time information about the locations of nearby aircraft. However, most current collision avoidance systems rely on non-intuitive visual and audio displays that may not allow pilots to take full advantage of this information. In this experiment, we compared the response times required for subjects participating in a fully-immersive simulated flight task to visually acquire and identify nearby targets under four different simulated TAS display conditions: 1) no display; 2) a visual display combined with a nonspatialized warning sound; 3) a visual display combined with a clock-coordinate speech signal; and 4) a visual display combined with a spatialized auditory warning sound. The results show that response times varied in an orderly fashion as a function of display condition, with the slowest times occurring in the no display condition and the fastest times occurring in the 3D audio display condition, where they were roughly 25% faster than those without the 3D audio cues.

Aurally Aided Visual Threat Acquisition in a Virtual Urban Battlespace

“…The difference between the monaural and semantic conditions did not reach significance (t(5)=2.34, p=.07). These findings replicate and extend previous results that demonstrated dramatic reductions in visual search times when spatialized auditory cues are provided (e.g., Perrot et al, 1996;Simpson, Brungart, Gilkey, Cowgill, Dallman, Green, Youngblood, and Moore, 2004). Simpson et al found that their 3D audio display led to more rapid responding than simple clock angles.…”

Effects of Visual and Auditory Cues About Threat Location on Target Acquisition and Attention to Auditory Communications

“…On the average, target acquisition times were 1 second faster (15 %) in the visual and 3-D audio modes than they were in the spatial language condition. These findings are similar to those of Simpson et al (2004) who did not present any concurrent verbal communications that could potentially interfere with the perception of the verbal cues about target location. Therefore, it is believed that the difference in target acquisition time between the spatial language condition and the visual and 3-D audio modes may be attributable to other factors.…”

“…Auditory cues might be presented verbally in spatial language (e.g., "5 o'clock") or in 3-D audio sounds that appear to emanate from the location of the target in space. Research on collision avoidance in aircraft have found reductions in target acquisition times and perceived workload when target location cues were provided in 3-D audio (Begault, 1993;Simpson, Brungart, Gilkey, Cowgill, Dallman, Green et al, 2004) or when 3-D audio and visual cues were paired (Tannen, 2001). Other studies on target cueing for navigation have found that distance perception was more accurate when cues were provided visually than auditorily (Loomis, Klatsky, Philbeck, & Golledge, 1998), and that directional errors were greater when cues were provided in spatial language than when they were provided in 3-D audio (Loomis, Lippa, Klatzky, & Golledge, 2002).…”

The Effects of 3D Audio on Hologram Localization in Augmented Reality Environments

“…There have been mixed results regarding the success of audio in aiding users in finding targets outside their FOV. For example, in a simulated flight task, users were able to acquire and identify targets outside their FOV roughly 25% faster using audio compared to using a visual display or mixed-modal display (Simpson, et al, 2004). Other similar studies have shown no difference between the use of visual or monaural sound stimuli, when used in a search task for objects outside a user's FOV (Luo & Peli, 2006).…”