| In daily life,we are deaf to the sound of our surroundings when we focused on the task at hand.Although it can help us block out irrelevant auditory stimuli,it would be dangerous if we missed critical auditory information.Some studies indicated participants failed to notice the unexpected auditory stimuli,which is called alarm deafness.In production safety,such as aviation,auditory alarm deafness is one of the major causes of flight accident and can cause a significant hazard to aviation safety.Therefore,it has a great practical significance for aviation safety to explore the mechanism of alarm deafness and how to avoid alarm deafness.First,previous studies just explored the effect of auditory and visual perceptual load on the processing of unexpected auditory stimuli.It is unclear whether other factors,such as expectancy,influence the effect of visual task load on auditory alarm detection sensitivity during aeronautical decision-making.Besides,it assessed the miss rate of the auditory alarm in the previous studies,rather than auditory detection sensitivity.Second,the load theory of cognitive control showed that regulating working memory resources played an important role in the detection of auditory alarm under the high cognitive load.The working memory capacity is the most intuitive reflection of working memory resources.It was still inconsistent among the existing studies about whether individuals with different working memory capacity would cause an individual difference in auditory alarm deafness.Besides the storage capacity of working memory,it is unclear whether individual difference in the central executive capacity of working memory have a different role in auditory alarm deafness.Third,the load theory of cognitive control showed that the high cognitive load tasks consume most of cognitive control resources,leaving little or none remaining for inhibiting the task-irrelevant auditory information.We speculate that the effect of working memory load on the processing of occasional auditory alarm is opposite to that of cognitive load.However,no studies have directly investigated the effect of working memory load on the detection of auditory alarm.Finally,how to avoid or reduce alarm deafness is of great practical significance to improve aviation safety in the complex and high-load environment.Based on the above issues,the current study has investigated the effect of task load,working memory capacity,working memory load and tDCS combined with working memory training on audio alarm perception during the landing decision-making through four studies,using the method of signal detection theory.Study 1 conducted three experiments to explore the effect of task load,memory failure induced by response priority,and expectancy induced by probability of alarm on auditory alarm sensitivity in the simulated aeronautical landing decision task.Results revealed that the sensitivity of auditory alarm detection was reduced under conditions of high cognitive load and that this effect was persistent even when the auditory detection response occurred first(before the landing decision response)and when the probability of an auditory alarm was 40%.The effect of cognitive load on the sensitivity to an auditory alarm was not because of memory failure.This study showed that expectancy level influenced the effect of cognitive load on auditory alarm sensitivity,and higher expectancy can mitigate the negative effect of cognitive load on auditory alarm sensitivity.Study 2 explored the effect of different working memory capacity on auditory alarm sensitivity in higher load landing decision-making task.Results revealed that there was no significant difference in auditory alarm sensitivity between higher and lower working memory storage capacity.But individuals with higher executive function of working memory were more sensitive to detect the auditory alarm than individuals with lower executive function.These findings showed it associated the individual difference in auditory alarm sensitivity under high load with the executive function of working memory,but not working memory storage capacity.Study 3 conducted three experiments to investigate the effect of different working memory storage load and executive function load on the auditory alarm sensitivity during the landing decision-making task.Results revealed that the auditory alarm sensitivity was higher in higher visual-spatial and visual-verbal working memory storage load relative to lower load.The auditory verbal working memory storage load did not influence auditory alarm sensitivity.Different from storage load,the auditory alarm sensitivity was stronger in the high executive function load relative to low executive function load.The results showed that working memory storage load and executive function load have different effect on auditory alarm sensitivity.The relationship between executive function and auditory alarm sensitivity was consistent with cognitive control load theory,but storage function was not.Study 4 explored the effect of tDCS combined working memory training on auditory alarm sensitivity under high load.Results revealed that tDCS over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during working memory training not only improved working memory executive function but also improved the auditory alarm sensitivity under the high load.This study showed that tDCS combined working memory training was an effective method to improve auditory alarm sensitivity.Based on the experimental results of the above four sub-studies,this study indicated that the limited cognitive resources lead to auditory alarm deafness under high-load task situations,but the cognitive expectation level and working memory ability affect the effect of task load.In addition,the relationship between the executive function load of working memory and auditory alarm deafness conforms to the cognitive control load theory,which also provides some empirical evidence for the role of cognitive control load theory in auditory inattentional deafness.Working memory training based on brain function enhancement technology can effectively reduce alarm deafness,which provides empirical evidence for the enhancement of auditory alert alertness and cognitive enhancement in the aviation. |
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