Investigating perceptual congruence between information and sensory parameters in auditory and vibrotactile displays

A fundamental interaction between a computer and its user(s) is the transmission of information between the two and there are many situations where it is necessary for this interaction to occur non-visually, such as using sound or vibration. To design successful interactions in these modalities, it is necessary to understand how users perceive mappings between information and acoustic or vibration parameters, so that these parameters can be designed such that they are perceived as congruent. This thesis investigates several data-sound and data-vibration mappings by using psychophysical scaling to understand how users perceive the mappings. It also investigates the impact that using these methods during design has when they are integrated into an auditory or vibrotactile display. To investigate acoustic parameters that may provide more perceptually congruent data-sound mappings, Experiments 1 and 2 explored several psychoacoustic parameters for use in a mapping. These studies found that applying amplitude modulation — or roughness — to a signal, or applying broadband noise to it resulted in performance which were similar to conducting the task visually. Experiments 3 and 4 used scaling methods to map how a user perceived a change in an information parameter, for a given change in an acoustic or vibrotactile parameter. Experiment 3 showed that increases in acoustic parameters that are generally considered undesirable in music were perceived as congruent with information parameters with negative valence such as stress or danger. Experiment 4 found that data-vibration mappings were more generalised — a given increase in a vibrotactile parameter was almost always perceived as an increase in an information parameter — regardless of the valence of the information parameter. Experiments 5 and 6 investigated the impact that using results from the scaling methods used in Experiments 3 and 4 had on users' performance when using an auditory or vibrotactile display. These experiments also explored the impact that the complexity of the context which the display was placed had on user performance. These studies found that using mappings based on scaling results did not significantly impact user's performance with a simple auditory display, but it did reduce response times in a more complex use-case

HAPTIC: Haptic Anatomical Positioning to Improve Clinical Monitoring

Hospitals are inundated by the sounds of patient monitoring devices and alarms. These are meant to help, yet also create a stressful environment for physicians and patients. To address this issue, we consider the possibility of delivering complementary haptic alarm stimuli via a wearable tactile display. This may reduce the necessity for the plethora of audible alarms in the Intensive Care Unit and Operating Room, potentially decreasing fatigue among clinicians, and improving sleep quality for patients. The study described here sought to determine a suitable anatomical location where such a tactile display could be worn. Although the wrist is an obvious default, based on the success of smartwatches and fitness monitors, wearable devices below the elbow are disallowed in aseptic procedural environments. We hypothesized that haptic perception would be approximately equivalent at the wrist and ankle, and confirmed this experimentally. Thus, for a healthcare setting, we suggest that the ankle is a suitable alternative for the placement of a tactile display

Human factor guidelines for the design of safe in-car traffic information services

The first version of the “Human factor guidelines for the design of safe in-car traffic information services” was compiled in 2014. In 2016 the guidelines were updated by Connecting Mobility/ DITCM, and the present version is a further update of that version. New systems have been introduced into the marked, and the role of apps on smartphones has increased. This report was updated to include recent developments such as gesture control. The guidelines are aimed at in-car traffic information services

Multicode Vibrotactile Displays to Support Mulitasking Performance in Complex Domains

The task sets for operators in many data-rich domains are characterized by high mental workload and the need for effective attention management, so the ability to effectively divide attention among multiple tasks and sources of task-relevant data is essential. With increasing technological advances, more and more sources of task-relevant data are being introduced in these already complex domains, thus introducing an increased risk of “data overload” – a cognitive burden which can lead to a substantial decline in operator performance. To combat this risk, it is important to consider how to best display the information for more efficient attention allocation and task management and thus improved overall multitask performance. A great deal of display design research has been centered around redundancy in multisensory information presentation, i.e., the presentation of identical information via two or more sensory channels, as a means to better support multitasking performance. One example is a display that delivers the same message via auditory speech and visual text. This redundant display of information may allow a multitasking operator to access the message via either channel, presumably the one less-loaded at the time. However, models of human information processing (such as multiple resource theory; MRT) as well as prior studies demonstrate a need for more than consideration of the sensory modality, but also consideration of the working memory functions engaged to interpret the encoded message. This dissertation proposal expounds the concept of multi-processing code redundancy, which makes use of both spatial and nonspatial working memory functions to deliver information. The primary aim of this research is to investigate how the introduction of a multicode vibrotactile display (one that presents identical information using two dimensions of tactile display) will affect overall multitasking performance when processing demands for concurrent tasks vary over time. Three studies were performed to gain an understating of the benefits and limitations of a discrete and a continuously-informing multicode display when concurrent tasks have changing processing demands. Findings of this dissertation illustrate that multicode redundancy shows promise for combating processing code interference described by MRT (by allowing either processing code to be engaged in message interpretation) and may prove beneficial in complex domains that involve concurrent tasks with competing working memory resources

Computational approaches to alleviate alarm fatigue in intensive care medicine: A systematic literature review

Patient monitoring technology has been used to guide therapy and alert staff when a vital sign leaves a predefined range in the intensive care unit (ICU) for decades. However, large amounts of technically false or clinically irrelevant alarms provoke alarm fatigue in staff leading to desensitisation towards critical alarms. With this systematic review, we are following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) checklist in order to summarise scientific efforts that aimed to develop IT systems to reduce alarm fatigue in ICUs. 69 peer-reviewed publications were included. The majority of publications targeted the avoidance of technically false alarms, while the remainder focused on prediction of patient deterioration or alarm presentation. The investigated alarm types were mostly associated with heart rate or arrhythmia, followed by arterial blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and respiratory rate. Most publications focused on the development of software solutions, some on wearables, smartphones, or headmounted displays for delivering alarms to staff. The most commonly used statistical models were tree-based. In conclusion, we found strong evidence that alarm fatigue can be alleviated by IT-based solutions. However, future efforts should focus more on the avoidance of clinically non-actionable alarms which could be accelerated by improving the data availability

Informative Vibrotactile Displays to Support Attention and Task Management in Anesthesiology.

The task set of an anesthesiologist, like that of operators in many complex, data-rich domains, requires effective management of attention, which must be divided among multiple tasks and task-relevant data sources. The inefficient allocation of attentional resources can lead to errors in monitoring a patient’s physiology, which constitute a significant portion of preventable medical errors. To better support attention management and multitasking performance without additionally loading the visual or auditory channels, this dissertation describes work to develop novel “continuously-informing” vibrotactile displays of physiological data. These displays use coded vibration patterns to communicate blood pressure and respiration data in real time. A theory-based approach was taken in the design of these displays to support the properties of “preattentive reference”: the signals can be processed in parallel without interfering with ongoing tasks, include partial information to support efficient task-switching, and can be processed in a mentally economical way. A series of research activities identified: 1) types of information that could best support anesthesiologists in task management decisions; 2) how to display this information via vibrotactile signals in ways that minimize perceptual interference from effects such as vibrotactile adaptation, masking, and tactile “change blindness”; 3) how to encode the information in vibrotactile patterns to minimize interference with concurrent tasks at cognitive processing stages; and 4) mappings between signal modulations and the represented data that best support economical processing. An evaluation study, set in a high-fidelity clinical simulation, showed substantial improvements in anesthesiologists’ multitasking performance, including faster detection and correction of serious health events, and fewer unnecessary interruptions of ongoing tasks with continuously-informing tactile displays, when compared to performance with traditional (visual/auditory) display configurations. This work contributes to theories and models of tactile and multimodal information processing, specifically concerning the performance effects of perceptual and cognitive interferences when information is processed via two or more sensory channels concurrently. It also demonstrates how a vibrotactile display designed to support properties of preattentive reference can improve attention management and multitask performance, thus showing promise for reducing the prevalence of monitoring errors and system awareness issues in anesthesiology and other complex, data rich domains.Ph.D.Industrial & Operations EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78911/1/ferrist_1.pd

Engineering data compendium. Human perception and performance. User's guide

The concept underlying the Engineering Data Compendium was the product of a research and development program (Integrated Perceptual Information for Designers project) aimed at facilitating the application of basic research findings in human performance to the design and military crew systems. The principal objective was to develop a workable strategy for: (1) identifying and distilling information of potential value to system design from the existing research literature, and (2) presenting this technical information in a way that would aid its accessibility, interpretability, and applicability by systems designers. The present four volumes of the Engineering Data Compendium represent the first implementation of this strategy. This is the first volume, the User's Guide, containing a description of the program and instructions for its use

Investigating vigilance for auditory, visual, and haptic interfaces in alarm monitoring

There are many alarms in healthcare systems that are primarily visual and auditory modalities. Alarms can occur thousands of times a day and can be stressful for clinicians. The overabundance of alarms leads to alarm fatigue. Alarm fatigue is a large patient safety issue as alarms may be silenced or not responded to in a timely manner. Introduction of a new information modality, such as a touchless haptic interface, could mitigate the effects of the vigilance decrement and alarm fatigue because of multiple resource theory and the idea that we have limited cognitive resources. The objective of this work is to investigate the use of a touchless haptic interface in an alarm monitoring vigilance task compared to visual and auditory interfaces. Data was collected on the reaction times of stimuli response to understand cognitive load and the number of correct detections, false positives, and false negatives to understand performance. Participants (N=36) completed a vigilance task in one of the three modality groups where they were asked to identify a stimulus over a 40-minute period. Mixed-effects linear regression models were built to analyze the differences between modalities and blocks. The main finding of this work is that visual interfaces perform best for alarm monitoring compared to auditory and haptic alarms; however, it was also shown that haptic interfaces may have a lower cognitive load compared to auditory interfaces. Therefore, haptic interfaces may be a promising avenue for offsetting information in healthcare alarm monitoring applications