Human Factors Research Problems in Electronic Voice Warning System Design

Abstract

The speech messages issued by voice warning systems must be carefully designed in accordance with general principles of human decision making processes, human speech comprehension, and the conditions in which the warnings can occur. The operator's effectiveness must not be degraded by messages that are either inappropriate or difficult to comprehend. Important experimental variables include message content, linguistic redundancy, signal/noise ratio, interference with concurrent tasks, and listener expectations generated by the pragmatic or real world context in which the messages are presented.