INCREASING DETECTABILITY AND REDUCING ANNOYANCE OF ALARM DESIGN USING ACOUSTIC STRUCTURES OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Auditory alarms play a crucial role in safety critical contexts such as medical devices. Traditionally, alarms utilize sustained harmonics that lack the temporal dynamics found in complex sounds which are not easily detectable unless played at a high volume, leading to increased annoyance (Foley et al., 2023). Here we explore how insights from musical instruments can be used to improve auditory alarms by balancing annoyance and detectability. …