Abstract

This study attempted to resolve the findings within Vu et al. and Bertolotti and Strybel regarding horizontal and vertical auditory cue displacement on target identification by examining local target area visual saliency and target uncertainty. Targets were identified with either an auditory cue or auditory-visual cue. Auditory cues were noise bursts spatially coincident with, or directionally displaced 4° or 8° from the target. Visual cues (circle: 6.5° radius) accurately identified the local target area surrounding the target. Target uncertainty varied the percentage of targets present within a given session. For auditory cues, as target probability increased, horizontal auditory cue displacement became a greater detriment to target identification regardless of error magnitude. For auditory-visual cues, while both target present and absent search times decreased significantly compared to auditory cues, target absent identification demonstrated the most significant improvement from increasing local target area visual saliency. Design recommendations and future research are discussed.