Allowing for individual differences in auditory warning design: Who benefits from spatial auditory alerts?

Abstract

An auditory spatial Stroop paradigm was used to examine the effects of semantic and spatial audio cue conflict on accuracy and response time. Participants responded to either the semantic meaning or the spatial location of a directional word, which was either congruent (i.e. the word "right" being presented from the right) or incongruent (i.e. the word "right" being presented from the left). Navigational strategy was also assessed to determine if individual differences on this measure could affect responses to semantic or location information. An interaction between task type and navigational strategy indicated that people who preferred a verbal strategy responded faster to semantic content and people who preferred a spatial strategy responded faster to location information. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the design of collision avoidance systems. Copyright 2010 by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Inc. All rights reserved.