Some of the most valuable characteristics of Information technology are manifested in assisting us to make decisions. Often, these attributes are evident when IT can speed processing and calculations, or when vigilance is needed to monitor performance of something (computers don’t get tired or bored), and alert us to an impending event. Another way for IT to support decision making, is to translate information from one cognitive processing modality to another one when the first one is at or near capacity. An emerging technology of this type is called Perceptual Mapping. Taking advantage of human senses, perceptions and cognition, perceptual mapping enhances and extends our ability to take in information and make decisions.

Humans process information through a number of channels, the most predominant being visual-spatial, musculo-skeletal and auditory. Each of these channels connects to specific locations in the brain (each has its own file server and does not compete with the others). Psychophysical laws describe boundaries at which perceptual difficulties occur, often explained by saying that the magnitude of a change in a physical stimulus that will just be noticed by an observer is a constant proportion of the stimulus. What this means for us is that changes in a state must be of significant magnitude for us to detect them, and that there is an absolute capacity for a perceptual channel (very similar to bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratios for transmission cables).

For example, in very loud manufacturing environments where equipment emits a cacophony of sounds (rotating motors, pneumatic hammers, hissing air or escaping steam) humans would have great difficulty in detecting a change in the sound of one piece of equipment. In such an environment, the auditory channel is either near capacity, or a change must register significant magnitude to be louder than other sources. For these reasons, industries often turn to annunciator lights to convey important changes to operators in order to make decisions. Here, the auditory channel is almost overloaded, but a small light is easily noticed through the visual channel.

Conversely, there are complex task settings that have the potential to exceed the capacity of the visual-spatial sensation-perception-processing channel. Good examples of this are found in aircraft cockpits. The pilot is confronted with literally hundreds of displays and annunciator lights, and the pilot is forced to make decisions about what to attend on the dashboard. This problem is exacerbated in a military tactical fighter. The pilot reads gauges and dials, uses heads-up-displays (HUD) on the windscreen, looks through the HUD into the sky and translates that information into musculo-skeletal activity, all the while receiving sensory information from kinesthesia and processing this information to make split-second decisions at more than a thousand miles an hour! Another dial or gauge is not only of no use, but detracts from performance by requiring cognitive processing capacity to decide whether or not to even use the display. In this example both the visual-spatial and musculo-skeletal channels are at capacity.

The challenge has been how to provide useful information for decision making in another modality so that a cognitive processing channel not at capacity may be used. Human factor engineers developed methods to make usage of the under-utilized auditory channel for fighter pilots in order to convey important information to the pilot. This technology is now available in many guises.

For military pilots It was important to increase overall work performance without increasing workload on channels at or near capacity. They did this by taking advantage of the auditory localization capacity of humans. Turning it into something useful could only be done with IT. Its development and application tell an interesting story.

Using a verisimilitude of a human head with anatomically correct ears, researchers inserted microphones into the dummy head. Centered in an acoustically prepared room, the head was surrounded by 360 speakers placed in a circle. Wiring for the microphones was routed into another room to a set of binaural headphones. Human subjects would wear the headphones while researchers would cause sounds to emanate from individual speakers around the dummy head. The subjects would detect the sounds and indicate from where they originated. Using this information, researchers were able to understand better how humans can locate the source and placement of sounds. Using the processing capacity of IT, researchers were able to translate information into a perceptual map for humans to process. For example, the fighter pilot while engaged and at capacity for visual-spatial and musculo-skeletal information can listen through binaural earphones for additional information. IT can track an enemy plane and translate its location into an auditory signal that can convey the enemy’s location, direction and rate of travel.

In this example, the pilot can fly the plane and know where the enemy or a target is by a sound inside his head (above and behind and closing, or below and in front and moving away). Using this information, the pilot may make decisions about attack or evasive maneuvers.

This is a technology that has great promise in other applications besides flying. Using global positioning systems (GPS) in automobiles, an auditory signal could tell the driver where a desired destination is without taking eyes off the road (important in Atlanta). Using radar or sonar canes, sight limited people could use auditory localization and perceptual mapping to get a better picture of the environment around them. And of course, the entertainment value of providing "virtual" localization in gaming has promise.

None of these would be possible without the processing power of today’s computers. Again, IT is being used to increase our processing capacity, and translate information into other modalities to reduce workload on cognitive channels.

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