Integrating multiple information sources: using redundancy in the design of warnings

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Abstract
The ability to present high priority warning information in both the auditory and visual modalities simultaneously has required consideration to be given to their integration. This paper describes an experiment that examined whether performance gains could be achieved by the presentation of up to four sources of concurrent, congruent information, within the applied setting of aircraft Missile Approach Warnings (MAW). It was found that four sources of information produced significantly faster responses than three sources (p<0-01). Three sources of information produced significantly faster responses than two sources (p<001) of information. Two sources of information, in turn, produced significantly faster responses ( p <001) than single sources. The implications of these results for the design of time-critical warning systems are discussed.