Performance in an Auditory Vigilance Task While Simultaneously Tracking a Visual Target

Previous research has shown that under certain rather explicit conditions it is possible to facilitate performance on a vigilance task by performing another vigilance task simultaneously. The question arises as to whether or not performance on at; auditory vigilance task is facilitated by simultaneously performing a continuous tracking task. It was concluded from the study reported here that in such a situation performance on the vigilance task is not facilitated. On the other hand, simultaneous tracking did not significantly impair performance on the vigilance task. From this study we infer that, in auditory monitoring situations where occasional signals must be detected and responded to, operator performance will not be impaired by the simultaneous performance of some task such as steering or piloting.