Visual Cues Like Texting More Beneficial In Auditory Overload Scenarios

Researchers have found that during auditory overload scenarios like military operations, texting can be a more beneficial way of communication.

During military operations, defense personnel are often asked to convey messages to other base camps "to ensure situational awareness, personal safety, and mission success." Often, there's a huge possibility of the message content getting lost amid high-level noise from weapons and vehicles. For such instances, Sharon Abel, scientist at Defense Research and Development Canada analyzed whether visual cues such as texting could be used to overcome this problem.

Abel and her colleagues conducted the analyses through two experiments. In the first experiment, the researchers looked at whether and how a visual cue could be used to direct a person's attention to an audio message, delivering targeted information. Participants were put in a mock military land vehicle, where they were exposed to multiple messages through right and left earphones via headset as well as through loudspeakers. However, the environment varied throughout the experiment with scenarios like background vehicle noise or no noise at all and visual cues or no visual cues.

In the second experiment, researchers looked to see whether visual cues could be used as supplements to provide audio information. For the experiment, participants were asked to indulge in two activities at once. First they were asked to listen to pairs of phrases in right and left headset earphones and at the same time decide whether simple math solutions were correct or not. These solutions were given to them over the loud speaker and through text messages.

"Participants had no difficulty responding to messages presented over the headset, although, there was a right ear advantage," Abel says. "We discovered that messages presented over a loudspeaker in noise were more difficult to understand. But a visual cue directing attention and text messaging resulted in significant improvements in performance. Our findings suggest that the use of the visual system is a viable supplement for communication in cases of auditory overload or degraded listening."

Abel will present her team's findings at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2013), held June 2-7 in Montreal.