The Effects of Speech Intelligibility Level on Concurrent Visual Task Performance
Abstract
Two experiments were performed to determine if changes in speech intelligibility level can impact performance levels in concurrent visual tasks. The auditory task used in both experiments was the auditory memory search task in which subjects memorized a set of word and then decided whether auditorally presented probe items were members of the memorized set. Experiment (1) used an unstable tracking task as the visual task, and experiment (2) used a spatial decision-making task. results showed that unstable tracking performance was unaffected by the level of speech intelligibility during the auditory task, whereas accuracy in the spatial decision-making task was significantly worse at low speech intelligibility levels. These results have clear implications for the design of communications systems. The findings are interpreted within the framework of multiple resource theory, and future directions for research are described.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA243015
Entities
People
- David G. Payne
- Deborah P. Birkmire
- Georges R. Garinther
- Leslie J. Peters
Organizations
- Human Engineering Laboratory