Distraction for the eye and ear

Abstract

The ways that extraneous visual and auditory stimuli impair human performance are reviewed with aim of distinguishing those sensory, perceptual and cognitive effects relevant to the design of human-machine systems. Although commonly regarded as disruptive, distractions reflect the adaptability of the organism to changing circumstances. Depending on the context, our knowledge of the ways in which distraction works can be exploited in the form of alarms or other attention-getting devices, or resisted by changing the physical and psychological properties of the stimuli. The research described here draws from contemporary research on distraction. The review underscores the vulnerability of performance even from stimuli of modest magnitude while acknowledging that distraction is a necessary consequence of our adaptive brain that leads to effects that are (and sometimes, but not always) beneficial to safety, efficiency and wellbeing. Low intensity distractors are particularly sensitive to the context in which they occur. The mechanisms outlined can be exploited either to grab attention (and even temporarily disable the individual, but more usefully to warn or redirect the individual) or to modify it in subtle ways across the gamut of human activity.

Keywords:

• Auditory distraction
• visual distraction
• cognitive distraction
• human performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.

Notes on contributors

Philip Morgan

Phillip Morgan PhD is a Reader in Cognitive and Human Factors Psychology, Director of Human Factors Excellence Research Group (HuFEx) as well as being Theme Leader within the Transport Futures Research Network at Cardiff University. Currently he is also seconded to Airbus as Technical Lead for Cyber Psychology and Human Factors. He holds a BSc in Psychology, a PG-Diploma in Research Methods, and PhD in Cognitive Science, all from Cardiff University. Areas of interest include: human-machine system design/interaction, interruption/distraction effects, transport and intelligent mobility and, cyber psychology. He is author of 50 research articles and supervises PhD students in areas including cyber psychology, patient safety and transport/mobility.

Bill Macken

Bill Macken PhD is Professor and Co-Director of the HuFEx research group in the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. He has degrees from Cork and Cardiff universities. He has 35 years’ experience in investigating theoretical and applied aspects of human cognition, including long- and short-term memory processes, speech processing, perception, attention and distraction. He has published over 50 journal articles and peer reviewed conference proceedings and has been received research funding from U.K. Research Councils as well as the defence and health care industries.

Alexander Toet

Alexander Toet PhD is a senior scientist at The Netherlands Organization of Applied Scientific Research TNO (Soesterberg, the Netherlands). His background is in human and computer vision. His research interests include multimodal image fusion, image quality, computational models of human visual search and detection, and the quantification of visual target distinctness. He currently investigates the effects of cross-modal perceptual interactions between the visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile senses on the affective appraisal of (real and virtual) environments and food. He is a Fellow of The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), a Senior Member of The Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a member of the SAE -10 Technical Committee on Laser Safety Hazards.

Aline Bompas

Aline Bompas PhD has degrees from Institut National Agronomique de Paris, DEA de Sciences Cognitives de Paris, and also Université Paris 5 (PhD: ‘The application of the sensorimotor approach to colour perception’. Previously Research Associate at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, now a lecturer in Psychology at Cardiff University and a member of the HuFEx research group. Dr Bompas’s research focuses on visuo-motor processes, such as rapidly responding with eye or hand movements to changes in visual signals with the aim of uncovering how the human brain takes these rapid decisions.

Mark Bray

Mark Bray CEng MIET is Executive Scientist in Photonics and Acoustic Systems at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence. Mark has provided technical leadership to large international programmes, ranging from strategy development, through originating proposal bids, to successful project delivery. Mark has led teams in trials both in Europe and the USA. Examples of Mark’s experience include: Technical Leadership of the EO Domain of the MoD/DGA: Materials and Components for Missiles, Innovation and Technology Partnership (MCM-ITP); leadership of projects include a dual band thermal camera to detect buried objects; developing and demonstrating an intelligent autonomous multi-modal surveillance system within the DASA funded project Mitigating Data Deluge in Surveillance Systems. One of Mark’s current responsibilities is the development of electronic distraction devices.

Simon Rushton

Simon Rushton PhD is a Professor in the School of Psychology at Cardiff University and member of the HuFEx research group. He has worked in academia and industry on both sides of the Atlantic. His primary areas of interest are how vision is used to guide actions, and how vision works during action. His work employs a range of techniques including psychophysics, motion tracking, modelling, robotics, clinical testing and brain imaging. One particular theme that runs through his work is Virtual Reality. He published early papers on Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs), worked on the design of HMDs with Hewlett-Packard, and used the technology extensively in his own research.

Dylan Jones

Dylan Jones PhD OBE is a Professor and Co-Director of HuFEx within the School of Psychology at Cardiff University with several decades of experience in the study of human cognition and understanding how it shapes our interaction with machines. He has over 300 publications covering a range of human-machine technologies, including virtual reality, visual and auditory interface design, speech synthesis and speech recognition applications, command and control systems, distraction and stress effects. He has an OBE for his work on Military Science.