Effects of varying the threshold of alarm systems and workload on human performance

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of varying the threshold of alarm systems and workload on human response to alarm signals and performance on a complex task. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was selected to reflect the sensitivity of the alarm system. The th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ergonomics 2007-07, Vol.50 (7), p.1127-1147
Main Authors: Bustamante, E. A., Bliss, J. P., Anderson, B. L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Applied physiology
Attention - physiology
Auditory Threshold - physiology
Automation
Biological and medical sciences
Decision Making
Effects
Equipment Failure
Ergonomics
Ergonomics. Work place. Occupational physiology
False-Alarm-Prone and Miss-Prone Automation
Female
Human performance
Human physiology applied to population studies and life conditions. Human ecophysiology
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Perception - physiology
Prospective Studies
Reaction Time
ROC Curve
Security systems
Space life sciences
Task Performance and Analysis
Time Factors
Workload - psychology
Workloads
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Summary:The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of varying the threshold of alarm systems and workload on human response to alarm signals and performance on a complex task. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was selected to reflect the sensitivity of the alarm system. The threshold of the alarm system was manipulated by changing the value of beta along the ROC curve. A total of 84 students participated in experiment 1 and 48 students participated in experiment 2. Participants performed a compensatory-tracking, a resource management and a monitoring task. As expected, results showed that participants responded significantly faster to true alarm signals when they were using the system with the highest threshold under low-workload conditions. Results also indicated that changing the threshold of the alarm system had a significant effect on overall performance and this effect was greater under high-workload conditions. However, contrary to expectations, the highest level of performance was achieved by setting the threshold at a low level. Results from both experiments revealed that the advantage of faster alarm reaction time as a result of increasing the system's threshold was lost because of its increased probability of missed events.
ISSN:0014-0139
1366-5847
DOI:10.1080/00140130701237345