Tactile, Visual, and Crossmodal Visual-Tactile Change Blindness: The Effect of Transient Type and Task Demands

When to use vibrotactile displays? A meta-analysis for the role of vibrotactile displays in human-computer interaction

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to investigate the benefits of unimodal tactile displays relative to other modal displays and the performance gains of adding redundant tactile displays by integrating empirical studies.

BACKGROUND

Tactile displays have attracted increasing attention in recent years due to their unique advantages. Synthesizing experimental data is necessary to analyze the performance benefits of tactile displays for participants and better help practitioners in utilizing them.

METHOD

Five meta-analyses were conducted. Two meta-analyses compared the participants' performance between tactile and other modal displays (visual vs. tactile and auditory vs. tactile). Three meta-analyses examined the performance gains of adding redundant tactile displays based on other modal displays (visual vs. visual + tactile, auditory vs. auditory + tactile, and visual + auditory vs. visual + auditory + tactile). The related moderator variables, the types of presented information and concurrent tasks, were analyzed.

RESULTS

Little evidence shows the performance difference between tactile and auditory displays. Tactile displays are more beneficial than visual displays for presenting alert information or in the situation with a visual concurrent task. The performance gains of adding redundant tactile displays to other modal displays also depend on the specific type of presented information and the concurrent task.

CONCLUSION

When using tactile displays to convey information, interface designers should consider the specific type of presented information and the concurrent tasks.

APPLICATIONS

The present study's findings can provide some implications for designers to utilize tactile displays when they construct and implement information displays.

A Neuroergonomics Approach to Mental Workload, Engagement and Human Performance

The assessment and prediction of cognitive performance is a key issue for any discipline concerned with human operators in the context of safety-critical behavior. Most of the research has focused on the measurement of mental workload but this construct remains difficult to operationalize despite decades of research on the topic. Recent advances in Neuroergonomics have expanded our understanding of neurocognitive processes across different operational domains. We provide a framework to disentangle those neural mechanisms that underpin the relationship between task demand, arousal, mental workload and human performance. This approach advocates targeting those specific mental states that precede a reduction of performance efficacy. A number of undesirable neurocognitive states (mind wandering, effort withdrawal, perseveration, inattentional phenomena) are identified and mapped within a two-dimensional conceptual space encompassing task engagement and arousal. We argue that monitoring the prefrontal cortex and its deactivation can index a generic shift from a nominal operational state to an impaired one where performance is likely to degrade. Neurophysiological, physiological and behavioral markers that specifically account for these states are identified. We then propose a typology of neuroadaptive countermeasures to mitigate these undesirable mental states.