Alert Fatigue Research

DOI: 10.20944/preprints202603.1014.v1

The Oddball
Test

A repeating alarm plays. Can you detect when it changes?

DPT 4.8m
Sound Required
3 min · 75 tones · Sound required

Listen to the alarm tone

You will need to detect when it changes. Make sure your volume is up.

Listening...

MONITORING Tone 1 of 75
Block 1: Obvious
DEPTH ALARM ACTIVE
DEPTH
4.8m
TAP when you hear a change
Obvious
Moderate
Subtle
0
/100
Habituation Index
--
Your Detection Accuracy by Block

Detection by Change Type

The Real-World Problem

This test used 75 tones over 3 minutes. On a real boat, a depth alarm might beep every 2 seconds for 20 minutes — that's 600 repetitions. If you stopped noticing changes after 50 repetitions in this test, imagine what happens after 600. The depth alarm beeps as you cross a shallow patch. It has been beeping for so long that you have stopped hearing it. Then the depth actually changes — the beep rate increases, the pitch shifts slightly. But your brain has classified the sound as background noise. You don't notice until the keel touches.

The problem isn't your hearing. It's that every alarm on your boat sounds the same, beeps the same way, and tells you nothing. When the only difference between 'safe' and 'danger' is a subtle change in beep rate, habituation makes the alarm useless.

This test is part of the Marine Alert Fatigue Study. Read the study

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