Cough once for danger: icons versus abstract warnings as informative alerts in civil aviation.
OBJECTIVE
An experiment investigated the efficacy of auditory icons as warning signals in an aviation context.


BACKGROUND
Iconic signals, such as a cough to signal dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, convey information about the nature of an incident and alert the operator that there is a problem, whereas signals that are arbitrarily associated with a critical incident provide relatively less information. Warning recognition speed and accuracy are likely to be influenced by modality of presentation (visual, auditory, auditory + visual) and task demand (low, high).


METHODS
The 172 participants completed a computer-based training session and test task that involved responding to abstract or iconic auditory (1 s), visual, or auditory + visual warnings associated with seven critical incidents while performing low- and high-demand concurrent tasks.


RESULTS
Significantly fewer training trials were required to learn iconic warnings than abstract warnings. An advantage for iconic warnings persisted into the test phase, evident most consistently as greater warning recognition accuracy. The effect was observed in both high- and low-demand conditions. Auditory abstract warnings, in particular, elicited slow reaction times and poor accuracy.


CONCLUSIONS
Associations between a small number of meaningful environmental sounds and critical incidents can be learned with ease relative to more abstract associations, although training is required and response times are relatively slow.


CONCLUSIONS
Sets of distinctive auditory iconic warnings can be designed to alert and inform pilots about non-time-pressured events. Potential applications of language-neutral icons as informative warnings include civil, commercial, and defense aircraft.
Perry
Nathan C
NC
MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney-Bankstown, South Penrith DC NSW 1797, Australia.
Stevens
Catherine J
CJ
Wiggins
Mark W
MW
Howell
Clare E
CE
D000060:Accidents, Aviation / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009517:New South Wales; D016272:Occupational Health