Equating Perceived Urgency Across Auditory, Visual, and Tactile Signals

Determining the most effective modality to use to draw an operator’s attention to a specific situation has been a topic of recent interest. Making this determination requires ensuring that the signals being compared have been equated for saliency and perceived urgency. We conducted an experiment to examine how perceptions of urgency and annoyance change with changes in physical parameters across auditory, visual, and tactile modalities. While urgency ratings in the low, medium, and high range were found in each modality, parameters such as interpulse interval had a greater impact on perceived urgency than annoyance in the auditory and tactile modality, while having relatively little impact in the visual modality. Results can be used to facilitate the design of alerts and warnings with pre-specified urgency levels while minimizing annoyance and have implications for both research and interface design.