Human errors in performing security-critical tasks are typically blamed on the complexity of those tasks. However, such errors can also occur because of (possibly unexpected) sensory distractions. A sensory distraction that produces negative effects can be abused by the adversary that controls the environment. Meanwhile, a distraction with positive effects can be artificially introduced to improve user performance. The goal of this work is to explore the effects of visual stimuli on the performance of security-critical tasks. To this end, we experimented with a large number of subjects who were exposed to a range of unexpected visual stimuli while attempting to perform Bluetooth Pairing. Our results clearly demonstrate substantially increased task completion times and markedly lower task success rates. These negative effects are noteworthy, especially, when contrasted with prior results on audio distractions which had positive effects on performance of similar tasks. Experiments were conducted in a novel (fully automated and completely unattended) experimental environment. This yielded more uniform experiments, better scalability and significantly lower financial and logistical burdens. We discuss this experience, including benefits and limitations of the unattended automated experiment paradigm.
Moreover, visual stimuli were found to be dominating in multi-sensory contexts. Eimer @cite_18 showed that in experiments with tactile, visual, and audio stimuli, subjects overwhelmingly utilized visual queues to localize tactile and auditory events.
@cite_18
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The localisation of auditory and tactile events is strongly affected by visual information, reflecting the dominant role of vision in spatial perception. New research suggests that early visual experience is critical for the establishment of such multisensory links. Summary Our nervous system is confronted with a barrage of sensory stimuli, but neural resources are limited and not all stimuli can be processed to the same extent. Mechanisms exist to bias attention toward the particularly salient events, thereby providing a weighted representation of our environment [1]. Our understanding of these mechanisms is still limited, but theoretical models can replicate such a weighting of sensory inputs and provide a basis for understanding the underlying principles [2, 3]. Here, we describe such a model for the auditory system—an auditory saliency map. We experimentally validate the model on natural acoustical scenarios, demonstrating that it reproduces human judgments of auditory saliency and predicts the detectability of salient sounds embedded in noisy backgrounds. In addition, it also predicts the natural orienting behavior of naive macaque monkeys to the same salient stimuli. The structure of the suggested model is identical to that of successfully used visual saliency maps. Hence, we conclude that saliency is determined either by implementing similar mechanisms in different unisensory pathways or by the same mechanism in multisensory areas. In any case, our results demonstrate that different primate sensory systems rely on common principles for extracting relevant sensory events. This study examined the effect of attention engagement to compound auditory-visual stimuli on the modification of the startle blink reflex in infants. Infants at 8, 14, 20, or 26 weeks of age were presented with interesting audiovisual stimuli. After stimulus onset, at delays defined by heart rate changes known to be associated with sustained attention or attention disengagement, blink reflexes were elicited by visual or auditory stimuli. Blink amplitude to either visual or auditory stimuli was enhanced when the infants were engaged in attention to the foreground auditory-visual stimuli relative to control trials with no foreground patterns. This enhancement of the blink amplitude increased from 8 to 26 weeks of age. In contrast to selective modality enhancement for single-modality foreground stimuli, these results show that these multimodal stimuli engage both visual and auditory attention systems in this age range. Descriptors: Infants, Attention, Heart rate, Blink reflex, Multimodal stimuli Ambient sensory distractions play a role in security-critical tasks that require human involvement. Adversarial control over human sensory input could broaden the attack surface. To shed light on this issue, a team conducted large-scale experiments that exposed subjects to unexpected audio and visual stimuli while they performed a security-critical task.