Recent research has suggested that music may enhance or reduce cognitive interference, depending on whether it is tonally consonant or dissonant. Tonal consonance is often described as being pleasant and agreeable, while tonal dissonance is often described as being unpleasant and harsh. However, the exact cognitive mechanisms underlying these effects remain unclear. We hypothesize that tonal dissonance may increase cognitive interference through its effects on attentional cueing. We predict that (a) consonant musical chords are attentionally demanding, but (b) dissonant musical chords are more attentionally demanding than consonant musical chords. Using a Posner cueing task, a standard measure of attention capture, we measured the differential effects of consonant chords, dissonant chords, and no music on attentional cueing. Musical chords were presented binaurally at the same time as a visual cue which correctly predicted the spatial location of a subsequent target in 80% of trials. As in previous studies, valid cues led to faster response times (RTs) compared to invalid cues; however, contrary to our predictions, both consonant and dissonant music chords produced faster RTs compared to the no music condition. Although inconsistent with our hypotheses, these results support previous research on cross-modal cueing, which suggests that non-predictive auditory cues enhance the effectiveness of visual cues. Our study further demonstrates that this effect is not influenced by auditory qualities such as tonal consonance and dissonance, suggesting that previously reported cognitive interference effects for tonal dissonance may depend on high-level changes in mood and arousal.

Mänskligt beslutfattande är en viktig faktor i design processen för system och objekt. Medden snabba utvecklingen av området förstärkt verklighet är det nu möjligt att simuleradigitala gränssnitt överallt. Det finns flera användningsområden både inom industin ochallmänheten där det realiseras med allt ifrån mobiltelefoner till smarta glasögon. I dennauppsats tas ett system fram för att testa hur visuell styrning kan implementeras med hjälpav huvudmonterad förstärkt verklighet. Subtil ledning undersöks också om det kan användas som en digital knuff i huvudmonterad förstärkt verklighet. För att undersöka dettatas en prototyp fram. Genom utveckling av denna prototyp kan ett kontrollerat experimentet genomföras och visuell styrning samt subtil ledning undersökas. Experimentet föratt undersöka visuell styrning är Posner cueing task. Genom att använda ögonspårningsutrustning, kan man mäta reaktionstiderna för sackader hos användarna. Resultatet visaren signifikant skillnad i reaktonstid när vår subtila ledning används. Slutsatsen av dennauppsats är att subtil ledning kan användas som en digital knuff i huvudmonterad förstärktverklighet och denna rapport kan användas för vidare forskning inom visuell styrning iförstärkt verklighet med huvudmonterade bildskärmar. / Human decision making is an important factor in the design process for systems anditems. With the fast developing of Augmented Reality it is now possible to simulate digitalinterfaces everywhere. This allows for several application areas both within the industryand for the public and it can be implemented with everything from cellphones to smartglasses. In this thesis, it is investigated how subtle gaze guidance can be implemented usingwearable Augmented Reality technology. Subtle cuing is also investigated to see if it canbe used as a digital nudge in head-worn Augmented Reality environment. To investigatethis, a prototype is developed. By developing a prototype that can perform a controlledexperiment, the visual guidance and subtle cueing can be examined with a Posner cueingtask. By using eye trackers, saccadic reaction times of the participants are measured andexamined. The result shows a significant change in reaction time when using our subtleguidance than without. The conclusion is that subtle cueing can be used as a digital nudgein a head-worn Augmented Reality environment and this thesis can be used for furtherstudies within visual guidance in Augmented Reality with a head-mounted display.