Analysis of Influencing Factors of Auditory Warning Signals’ Perceived Urgency and Reaction Time

The auditory warning is one of the most important information in cockpit. To study the effects of auditory warnings to human capability of receiving information, this paper describes the test about the effects of various warning features on the information receiving performance of the testers. Testers in the laboratory environment finish the mission for determination of 24 warning tones combined by two volumes (65 dB (A), 75 dB (A)), three frequencies (700 Hz, 1,200 Hz, 1,700 Hz), and four inter-onset intervals (100, 150, 300 and 600 ms). This test considers the perceived urgency judgment and reaction time of the tester as the study data that experiences the comparative analysis and variance analysis after being paired. The study results indicate that the sound volume influences the perceived urgency judgment significantly (p < 0.05) and impacts the reaction time greatly (p < 0.01). Sound frequencies also effect the perceived urgency judgment significantly (p < 0.05) and so do the inter-onset intervals in both the perceived urgency judgment and reaction time (p < 0.01). In conclusion, the greater the volume is, the higher the frequency is, the shorter the inter-onset interval is, and the higher the perceived urgency is while the greater the volume is, the shorter the inter-onset interval is, and the shorter the reaction time becomes.