Human probability matching behaviour in response to alarms of varying reliability

The goals of this research were to substantiate the existence of the cry-wolf effect for alarm responses, quantifying its effect on operator performance. A total of 138 undergraduate students performed two blocks of a cognitively demanding psychomotor primary task; at the same time, they were presented with alarms of varying reliabilities (25, 50 and 75% true alarms) and urgencies (green, yellow and red visual alarms presented concurrently with low-, medium- and high-urgency auditory civilian aircraft cockpit alarms). Alarm response frequencies were observed and analysed, and t-tests and repeated-measures MANOVAs were used to assess the effects of increasing alarm reliability on alarm response frequencies, speed and accuracy. The results indicate that most subjects (about 90%) do not respond to all alarms but match their response rates to the expected probability of true alarms (probability matching). About 10% of the subjects responded in the extreme, utilizing an all-or-none strategy. Implications of these results for alarm design instruction and further research are discussed.