Tactile displays of pulse oximetry: An exploratory vigilance study

Prior investigations of vibrotactile displays suggest they have promise for use in the healthcare domain. This exploratory study forms part of a series exploring the use of an upper arm, continuously informing, vibrotactile display of pulse oximetry for clinicians. The study focused on the effect of vigilance on participants’ accuracy and latency for detecting and identifying changes in vital sign levels. Twenty-one participants were tested in a within-subjects design in four blocks of approximately 18 minutes duration each. Two blocks were a low workload condition and the other two blocks a high workload condition. Data were analysed against thresholds of 90% for accuracy and 10 seconds for response latency and workload conditions were also compared for accuracy and latency. Participants’ accuracy was not better than 90% and response latency was not shorter than 10 seconds, even in the low workload conditions. Participants were slower to detect changes in the high workload condition, and detection time worsened as the experiment progressed. Taken together, the results suggest that detecting rare events places a high strain on cognition and negatively affects performance. These findings have implications for the use of vibrotactile displays and will guide further investigations into the use of vibrotactile technology in healthcare.