Crossmodal attention & public-private displaysPatrick Olivier, Stephen Gilroy, Han CaoDaniel Jackson and Christian KrayInformatics Research InstituteNewcastle University, UK

Talk summarypublic-private divide and ambient displaysspatially context and location-based servicescrossmodal cognition and displayscrossmodal ambient navigation (CROSSFLOW)extensions to display boards (CROSSBOARD)closing discussion

Public-private dividelocation-based services furnish information of different degrees of privacyhandheld personal displays are the standard technological response to privacy issuespersonal displays:place high demands on the userundermine our situational awarenessneed new display paradigms to address this

Ambient displays (design)subclass of peripheral displayslow cognitive loadmatch display & environment (calm)sufficient information designconsistent and intuitive mappingvisibility of stateaesthetic and pleasing designbut they are not personalised

Information display & spatial contextstandard configuration (location-based display)personal displaypositional sensingspatially multiplexed (specific location, all the time)alternative configuration (location-based display)global (spatially) displayno positional sensingtemporally multiplexed (specific time, all locations)user recieves a personal index to relevant information (time)

Crossmodal cognitionmultimodal cognition widely exploitedcapacities and effects involved in process of matching information received through multiple perceptual modalities (e.g. McGurk effect)humans spontaneously (and pre-attentively) integrate spatial cues across modalitiesGOAL: utilise crossmodal signals to cue perception of temporally multiplexed information in a public display

Crossmodal ambient navigationcrossmodal cueambient displaytemporal multiplexingcrossmodal display

Preliminary user studyGoal:compare CROSSFLOW & a map on navigation task investigate impact of CROSSFLOW on a primary task explore the degree of ambience (cognitive load)Designdual-task primary task: test a set of arithmetic questionssecondary task: find 5 of 15 targets using CROSSFLOW/mapsubjects: 9 participants, 4 females and 5 males small experimental area: 10 x 6.5 metersthree phases for each subject

Observationsthe mean time: 28% quickerthe mean accuracy when using CROSSFLOW: 17% higherself-reports of cognitive load lower for CROSSFLOW

Discussion (on observations)crossmodal navigation led to improved performance on both the primary (arithmetic question answering) and secondary (navigation)directions appear vaguer in a small area with dense destinations than in a larger area with larger targetsneed evaluation of navigation in the wild questions:are there other forms of temporal multiplexing to exploit?are there other situated displays to apply this to?

Crossmodal access to dense displays

Conclusions (on design space)modality design spacemodality selection & configurationaggregation (e.g. visual continuity, dynamic vs static)public-private divideinfrastructure (broadcast crossmodal cue schedules)action visibility / legibility (for users and bystanders)scalability temporal multiplexing inherently low resolutiondecompose the environment into regions (some tracking)evaluation and other configurations

Thanks for listening!