Influence of Precue on Spatial Stimulus-Response Compatibility Effect in a Dual-Task Paradigm

The spatial stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effect shows that better human performance results from some spatial arrangements of controls and displays than others. This study investigated spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect with the presence of precue in a dual-task paradigm with a primary pursuit manual tracking task and a secondary spatial SRC task. The objective was to establish data for making ergonomics recommendations for human-machine interface design in control consoles. The results showed significant spatial stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility effect with the presence of precue, leading to different response times of the participants in the secondary discrete response task. BC (both transverse and longitudinal compatible) S-R mapping condition resulted in shorter reaction time. BI (both transverse and longitudinal incompatible) condition may not lead to the worst reaction time because two linear incompatibilities can be perceived as a single incompatibility in diagonal directions.