Supporting Timesharing and Interruption Management Through Multimodal Information Presentation

Abstract

Operators in complex event-driven domains often need to perform multiple concurrent tasks and handle competing attentional demands, such as interruptions by other human or machine agents. This study examined the effectiveness of distributing tasks across various sensory channels and presenting information on the nature of an interruption task to support timesharing and attention management. Participants performed a visually demanding simulated Air Traffic Control (ATC) task involving Data Link communication. At times, an interruption task was introduced, which consisted of counting subsets of signals that were presented in visual, auditory, or tactile form. Half of the subjects automatically received information on the modality and urgency of these pending interruption tasks whereas the other participants had the option to request this information. Within-subject variables in this study included ATC-related workload and the frequency and priority of interruption tasks. High-priority tasks had to be performed immediately whereas low-priority tasks could be delayed for up to two minutes. The results show that information about the nature of pending tasks supported participants in scheduling and timesharing more effectively. They were able to avoid intramodal interference and scanning costs associated with performing the ATC task concurrently with a visual interruption task. Crossmodal interference was lowest for auditory interruption tasks. Overall, these findings illustrate the benefits of multimodal information presentation and more informative interruption signals.crossmodal information presentation has focused almost

Cross-modal matching

“…Benefits of distributing information across modalities include improved time-sharing and more effective attention and interruption management (e.g., Brickman, B. J., Hettinger, L. J., & Haas, M. W., 2000;Ho, C. Y., Nikolic, M. I., & Sarter, N. B., 2001;Latorella, 1999). However, with few exceptions (e.g., Brill et al, 2007Brill et al, , 2008Brill et al, , 2009Garcia, A., Finomore, V., Burnett, G., Baldwin, C., & Brill, C., 2012), studies on multimodal information processing have not performed (or, at least, not reported) any cross-modal matching procedure prior to conducting an experiment.…”

“…Multimodal displays and multisensory information processing (i.e., the concurrent presentation and processing of information in vision, audition, and touch, in particular) have received considerable attention in the field of cognitive ergonomics over the past decade (e.g., Calvert, G. A., Spence, C., & Stein, B. E., 2004;Ferris & Sarter, 2008;Sarter, 2006). Benefits of distributing information across modalities include improved time-sharing and more effective attention and interruption management (e.g., Brickman, B. J., Hettinger, L. J., & Haas, M. W., 2000;Ho, C. Y., Nikolic, M. I., & Sarter, N. B., 2001;Latorella, 1999). However, with few exceptions (e.g., Brill et al, 2007Brill et al, , 2008Brill et al, , 2009Garcia, A., Finomore, V., Burnett, G., Baldwin, C., & Brill, C., 2012), studies on multimodal information processing have not performed (or, at least, not reported) any cross-modal matching procedure prior to conducting an experiment.…”

Crossmodal matching

“…These displays have been widely studied and proven to be a promising means of reducing visual data overload (e.g., Brickman, Hettinger, & Haas, 2000), improving the timesharing of multiple tasks, and supporting more effective interruption management (e.g., Ho, Nikolic, & Sarter, 2001;Latorella, 1999;, especially in data-rich, complex environments. To be effective, their design needs to be based on a firm understanding of how information is processed both within and across modalities.…”

Using Freeze Frame and Visual Notifications in an Annotation Drawing Interface for Remote Collaboration

“…While there is no prior study exploring the design of visual notifications in remote collaboration study, there are several researchers who emphasized the requirements in designing notifications in real world task management [44]. Ho et al [45] found that notifications through a modality different from the one used in the primary task reduced the level of disruption. However, Posner [46] and Hameed et al [47] found that the visual notification on the peripheral vision can be effectively perceived while using a fovea vision for the primary task.…”