Investigating Visual Alerting in the Maritime Domain; Report on 3 Experiments, With Supporting Documentation

Abstract : Aspects of visual alerts were explored to determine what type of visual alerts best captured attention, as measured by reaction time (RT) to the alerts. In part 1, flash rate of alerts was explored to determine the most effective detection. The results suggested that flashing at any of the flash rates was no better than a non-flashing alert. In part 2, the cost of moving an alert from one location to another was investigated. The results showed an alert location-switching cost (slower RTs after switch) that was only present for inexperienced and older participants. In part 3, the relationship between eye-location and cursor location was explored. The goal of this research was to determine if cursor-location was a good proxy for eye-location during a multidisplay task that had been used in previous experiments. The results suggested that, for this task, the cursor was in fact an excellent proxy for eye-location with a very high display correspondence between eye and cursor location. Both eye and cursor were found to move from one display to another at the same time. The results have implications for future visual alerting research and the design of automated alerting.