Online Study Reveals the Multimodal Effects of Discrete Auditory Cues in Moving Target Estimation Task

Tasks that require temporal accuracy and precision are common in interactive systems. One such task is the moving target selection task in which visual motion cues are used to estimate timing. Our online study investigates the multimodal effects of discrete auditory cues in such a task in which the input timing has to be estimated from visual targets thrown at different speeds and intervals (moving target estimation). The auditory cues provide timing anticipation of the interception from the interval between the beats of two beeps. This intervention is novel in that it enriches the visual motion information and independently gives timing anticipation. Furthermore, we show that such cues can decrease systematic errors in the moving target estimation task. As the effectiveness of auditory cues is demonstrated in online experiments, we can expect to apply such intervention to interactive systems in various environments.