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The more the better? The impact of number of stages of likelihood alarm systems on human performance
Balaud, Magali; Manzey, Dietrich
Responses to alarms involve decisions under uncertainty. Operators do not know if an alarm is more likely to be a hit or a false alarm. Likelihood alarm systems (LAS) help reduce this uncertainty by providing information about the certainty of their output. Unlike traditional binary alarm systems, they have three or more stages: each one represents a different degree of likelihood that a critical event is really present. Consequently, the more stages, the more specific is the information provided by the alarm system to reduce uncertainty. A laboratory experiment with 48 participants was conducted to investigate the effect of specificity of information of LAS on performances and responding behaviour. Specifically, a three-stage, four-stage, and five-stage LAS were compared using a multi-task environment. Results show higher percentages of correct decisions in the alarm task when participants used the four- and five-stage LAS than the three-stage LAS but no significant differences were found between the four-and five-stage LAS. Interesting differences in response patterns were also observed. This study suggests that four stages is the best degree of specificity for optimal performance.
Published in: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Europe Chapter 2014 Annual Conference, Human Factors & Ergonomics Society
