Investigating Visual Alerting in Complex Command and Control Environments

A series of experiments was conducted to investigate visual alerting in complex command and control environments, where operators must use several displays to perform tasks. In the first experiment, the speed of detection of two alerts, one in the form of a short bar and the other a border surrounding the perimeter of the display, were compared under flashing and static states. Findings showed that bar alerts were detected faster than border alerts and that adding a flashing attribute did not provide a benefit. The second study monitored which display participants were attending to when the alert appeared, and the results revealed that alert detection was not always superior when alerts and attention were on the same display. The third experiment investigated display configuration to ensure that the previous findings were not a result of the specific tasks performed on each display. The results are discussed in the context of the limitations of spatial attention.

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