Redundancy Gains in Communication Tasks: A Comparison of Auditory, Visual, and Redundant Auditory-Visual Information Presentation on NextGen Flight Decks

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The redundant presentation of information in more than one sensory channel has traditionally been assumed to benefit performance. However, a recent meta-analysis suggests that redundancy gains may depend on task type and a number of moderator variables. The present study examined the effectiveness of visual, auditory, and redundant auditory-visual information presentation under high and low workload in the context of a mid-fidelity NextGen flight simulation with experienced airline pilots as participants. Overall, for two types of communication tasks – data link and ATIS – faster responses were observed for redundant displays, compared to vision and audition alone. No significant benefit of redundancy was found for accuracy due to a ceiling effect and workload did not mediate redundancy effects. The findings from this research add to the knowledge base in multimodal and redundant information processing and can inform modality choices in the design of displays for complex, data-rich domains.