Novel auditory alerts that foster efficient detection and discrimination in complex auditory environments: Dual-task conditions

In many complex auditory environments, auditory alerts must be perceived and distinguished accurately while distractions are mitigated. Previously, we measured detection and discrimination performance using four novel alerts: one pair of narrowband and one pair of broadband alerts. Within each pair, one alert was perceived as consonant (labeled “friendly”) and one as dissonant (labeled “enemy”). The alerts were presented along with maskers consisting of “truck noise” or “truck noise” combined with “speech babble.” Separately, for the pairs of alerts, detectability of the alerts and discriminability between “friendly” and “enemy” pairs of alerts were measured as a function of signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). Results indicated that the alerts allow for robust detection and discrimination, even though the “friendly”-“enemy” pairs of alerts occupied similar spectral loci. In the study reported here, we measured the detectability and discriminability of the alerts under single and dual-task “N-back conditions” to simulate more attentionally demanding environments (e.g., in military conflict). The goal was to assess the impact of the N-back task on the robustness of the alerts to convey crucial information. Results will be presented and discussed in terms of the influence of the relevant variables on the form of the dual-task ROC. [Work funded by ONR N000142212184.]