Investigation on the Effects of Presentation Modality for Spatial Signals on Human Performance Using a Dual Task Paradigm

Abstract

A dual task was designed to involve a tracking mission with various tracking speeds and a spatial compatibility task with various signal-key mappings and presentation modalities. This dual task was used to investigate the effects of workload and resource competition in distinct parts of the dual-task process. The results demonstrated that increasing the tracking speed adversely affected tracking performance but led to positive arousal in the secondary discrete response task. Visual spatial signals gave the shortest reaction time due to the optimal timesharing of visual resources in the focal and ambient channels. Compared with visual spatial signals, spatial
signals of auditory and tactile modalities did not lead to improved performance because of their crossmodality nature. These findings provide practical design guidelines for dual tasks where operators need to visually complete a continuous monitoring task and elicit timely and accurate responses to spatial information.

Speaker

Dr Alan H.S. Chan, Associate Professor of Systems Engineering at the Department of Systems Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, and former Chairman of the Hong Kong Occupational Safety and Health Council, Justice of the Peace, was awarded the "Bronze Bauhinia Star" by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government in 2022. He is a senior expert and member of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, the American Industrial and Systems Engineering Society, the British Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, and the International Ergonomics Association. He was recognized as one of the "Top 2% Global Scientists" by Stanford University in 2022 and 2023. His research areas primarily include human factors engineering, industrial design, and occupational safety and health management. His research findings have been published in renowned international journals such as Accident Analysis & Prevention, Human Factors, Ergonomics, Applied Ergonomics, Analytic Methods in Accident Research, Journal of Safety Research, Safety Science, Frontiers in Psychology, Internet Research, and others. Dr Chan has authored over 240 SCI papers. Currently, he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics and the Associate Editor of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries.