Abstract
There was still much unknown in regard to human hearing. This study explored to the extent of alert tone which could enhance people’s memory accuracy and decrease the reaction time. The goal was to achieve rapid response and identification of the warning sounds. The experiment adopted a compound warning sound that varied in volume and frequencies (one octave as a unit) to investigate human auditory vigilance. In this study, a 3×3 experimental design was used. A total of 33 subjects participated in this experiment. The independent variables were frequency with three levels and loudness with three levels. The frequency factor was divided into two groups: a group of 4 unit octave (0, -4, +4 octave), another group of 8 unit octave (0, -8, +8 octave). The three volume settings were 55, 65, 75 dB. The dependent variables were accuracy and reaction time. The results showed that the correct recognition rate was significantly affected by 4 unit octave difference (p-value=0.27) and loudness (p-value=0.004). But the results were significantly affected by the reaction time. Another results showed that the correct recognition rate was significantly affected by 8 unit octave difference (p-value=0.004). The results also had significant effects on reaction time (p-value=0.02). But the results were significantly affected by the loudness. The results of this study may provide control room designer for select the alert tone of frequency and loudness for different warning signals to find out the best solution for users to facilitate identification for human vigilance hearing performance.