7 ms·

Trying to figure out which melody was which in an emergency doesn't seem like the most human-friendly. Contrast with the GPWS warnings in aviation, which tells

by tux3 2y ago

Trying to figure out which melody was which in an emergency doesn't seem like the most human-friendly. Contrast with the GPWS warnings in aviation, which tells you what the problem is (TERRAIN TERRAIN) and what to do (PULL UP) in a progressively more alarmed voice as things get worse. (Well.. Sometimes you hear of some particularly bright individuals who think the bank angle warning is a checklist item, but it's generally hard to get these wrong, compared to many other beeping warnings)

sebmellen 2y ago
GPWS warnings should be the gold standard for any sort of urgent audio alarm. Examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Z-d1Zx02o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Z-d1Zx02o
- imglorp 2y ago
  At :42 I think the buzzing sound is the "stick shaker" stall warning. It literally shakes the pilot's control yoke. So not only is it an alarm, it's also reminding the pilot of the correction needed: to push the control forward.
  - varjag 2y ago
    Wouldn't that be pull backward?
    - seabass-labrax 2y ago
      Not in this case, because the 'stick shaker' activates when the aircraft is stalling or close to stalling. The only sensible option in this scenario is to lower the angle of attack, that is, pitch forward. If you have both the GPWS 'terrain, pull up' warning and the stick shaker warning simultaneously then you are in a sticky situation indeed.
      - krisoft 2y ago
        > If you have both the GPWS 'terrain, pull up' warning and the stick shaker warning simultaneously then you are in a sticky situation indeed. Yeah. To quote the movie Wargames: “The only winning move is not to play.” That is a pilot should do their best to avoid getting into anywhere near that situation.
    - krisoft 2y ago
      What i heard is that it is designed to imitate the stick sensation smaller airplanes have as the wind buffets the controll surfaces when a stall develops. And pilots from an early stage in their flying training conditioned to push the stick forward when that happens.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- Lammy 2y ago
  Making this my PagerDuty alert sound https://youtu.be/fbfVGIBcD8c?t=77 https://youtu.be/fbfVGIBcD8c?t=77
- flemhans 2y ago
  I used to have pull up as my ringtone, freaked my uncle out (who's a commercial pilot) when he was over for dinners. Or at least he pretended to be :P
  - krisoft 2y ago
    I was half-asleep travelling on a train when a kid blew a wistle near me which sounded exactly like the stall warning horn of the Cessna-150 i was learning to fly around that time. It jolted me awake right away. I had this clear clarity in my mind that i have to push the controls forward until i realised that I am nowhere near an airplane.
- masto 2y ago
  Now I have this. https://looptube.io/?videoId=W5Z-d1Zx02o&start=77.12867647058833&end=79.99514447699106&rate=1 https://looptube.io/?videoId=W5Z-d1Zx02o&start=77.1286764705...
yread 2y ago
They also have their share of cavalry charges and buzzers. Plus the plane sometimes calls you a retard
kmoser 2y ago
At least chimes are language-agnostic. Verbal warnings like "pull up" are only good if you have a reasonable grasp of English.
- graypegg 2y ago
  At the very end, there's some examples of more literal sounds. It says there hasn't been a study, but I would bet they're a lot more clear with out having to resort of the aviation standard of "just learn basic english". buh-bump is cardiac stuff. wiSShhh... wooosSH is respiratory stuff. Only thing is, I bet you can hear sounds similar to those in a hospital. The "beep beep" they put over it might not be enough. Still a really interesting research topic!
- turrican 2y ago
  True, but professional pilots from all countries are expected to be fluent in Aviation English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_English
  - kmoser 2y ago
    Yes, but in a high-stress environment, your ability to process words--especially those not in your native language--goes down the tubes quickly. Even if you were to tune out sounds to the same degree that you tune out words, at least the sounds would still have a relatively universal meaning, e.g. loud klaxon for big problem, soft chime for minor notification.
- flemhans 2y ago
  Another good thing is that they allow for talking over them better. The same way you may sing along to an instrumental-only music track using whichever lyrics you prefer.
graypegg 2y ago
I wonder how much information any 1 medical device with an alert knows though. GPWS has the benefit of being part of 1 system, where (I think, no experience here) hospitals seem to treat equipment as singular items that do 1 thing or are meant for a specific area of responsibility in an operation. Like a vitals monitor might not know what the drug pump is doing. I could imagine ventilation? arrhyth-*C-chord*-ARRHYTHMIA! CHECK PUMP! HEART RATE! coming from different devices to be pretty distracting. I think GPWS can set windows of cases where an alert is given. Like, a terrain warning isn't much help when landing. Maybe there's something like that already for medicine, but a device who's job is to consume information from other devices, and only provide alerts based on rules the staff can configure before an operation, could be a thing that's useful.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
  That's really the problem many here are describing. 60601 mandates what alarms shall be active, but it spans a single device. If you have, e.g., 10 ventilators in a room that are alarming, you can't silence them all with a single button press.
  - graypegg 2y ago
    I can kind of understand why it ended up that way. There's some benefit to just assuming, nothing works together. It's at least a consistent state of affairs. You can just wheel in any heart rate monitor, and you only need to understand that heart rate monitor. But it seems like a space that's really ripe for improving. We have very reliable simple protocols you could hook these all into. Imagine it was law that every medical device had to emit the numbers it displays on something like an ODB2 port. Something that can be visually checked to be plugged in, be unplugged and replugged with no handshake, and handle daisy chaining so in the event the "network" breaks in two, or a device goes down, you still get information from the remaining network/it can reroute. For such a highly regulated industry... you kind of wish they would regulate. I guess status quo is also a regulation.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
unsignedint 2y ago
One significant difference between verbal warning systems in airplanes and those in medical environments, such as hospitals, is the level of environmental control. In an airplane, the environment is highly controlled, with a single set of systems specific to that aircraft. In contrast, hospitals often have multiple systems operating simultaneously in the same room or nearby. This can lead to cognitive overload when multiple systems issue verbal warnings simultaneously. In such scenarios, tone alarms might be easier to manage and differentiate than multiple overlapping verbal warnings.
- akira2501 2y ago
  > In an airplane, the environment is highly controlled Aircraft systems are developed independently and added as options to planes. Which means they get swapped out, there are variants in capabilities, and multiple manufacturers involved. > This can lead to cognitive overload when multiple systems issue verbal warnings simultaneously. This is a known phenomenon on flights as well. There is some speculation it played a part in Air France 447. The plane technically _was_ telling the pilots the _precise_ problem they faced, but in the sea of other warnings they were entirely lost. > tone alarms might be easier to manage and differentiate than multiple overlapping verbal warnings. If you're a nurse, is the fact you have a ventilation alarm in one room and a temperature alarm in a different room that can be discerned without visual confirmation a useful feature in a health care setting? I think the big difference is your flight has 2 people responsible for hundreds of lives. In the hospital you would hope the ratio would be more favorable.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >Aircraft systems are developed independently and added as options to planes. Which means they get swapped out, there are variants in capabilities, and multiple manufacturers involved. He means there is only ever one aircraft (the one you're flying) and hundreds of patients in a hospital. Imagine if you will, hundreds of GPWS alarms are blaring off all screaming TERRAIN PULL UP TERRAIN PULL UP PULL TERRAIN UP UPTERRAIN PULL TERRPULLAINUP UPULLPTERRAIN TERRPULLAINUP PULLRAIN TEUPR... That's both alarm fatigue[1] and the alarms being wholly impractical to begin with. For starters, which GPWS wants to be pulled up again? You can't know, there's hundreds! And that's even assuming you can make out TERRAIN PULL UP in the maelstrom of noise. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue

by tux3 2y ago

sebmellen 2y ago

GPWS warnings should be the gold standard for any sort of urgent audio alarm. Examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Z-d1Zx02o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Z-d1Zx02o

imglorp 2y ago
At :42 I think the buzzing sound is the "stick shaker" stall warning. It literally shakes the pilot's control yoke. So not only is it an alarm, it's also reminding the pilot of the correction needed: to push the control forward.
- varjag 2y ago
  Wouldn't that be pull backward?
  - seabass-labrax 2y ago
    Not in this case, because the 'stick shaker' activates when the aircraft is stalling or close to stalling. The only sensible option in this scenario is to lower the angle of attack, that is, pitch forward. If you have both the GPWS 'terrain, pull up' warning and the stick shaker warning simultaneously then you are in a sticky situation indeed.
    - krisoft 2y ago
      > If you have both the GPWS 'terrain, pull up' warning and the stick shaker warning simultaneously then you are in a sticky situation indeed. Yeah. To quote the movie Wargames: “The only winning move is not to play.” That is a pilot should do their best to avoid getting into anywhere near that situation.
  - krisoft 2y ago
    What i heard is that it is designed to imitate the stick sensation smaller airplanes have as the wind buffets the controll surfaces when a stall develops. And pilots from an early stage in their flying training conditioned to push the stick forward when that happens.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
Lammy 2y ago
Making this my PagerDuty alert sound https://youtu.be/fbfVGIBcD8c?t=77 https://youtu.be/fbfVGIBcD8c?t=77
flemhans 2y ago
I used to have pull up as my ringtone, freaked my uncle out (who's a commercial pilot) when he was over for dinners. Or at least he pretended to be :P
- krisoft 2y ago
  I was half-asleep travelling on a train when a kid blew a wistle near me which sounded exactly like the stall warning horn of the Cessna-150 i was learning to fly around that time. It jolted me awake right away. I had this clear clarity in my mind that i have to push the controls forward until i realised that I am nowhere near an airplane.
masto 2y ago
Now I have this. https://looptube.io/?videoId=W5Z-d1Zx02o&start=77.12867647058833&end=79.99514447699106&rate=1 https://looptube.io/?videoId=W5Z-d1Zx02o&start=77.1286764705...

yread 2y ago

They also have their share of cavalry charges and buzzers. Plus the plane sometimes calls you a retard

kmoser 2y ago

At least chimes are language-agnostic. Verbal warnings like "pull up" are only good if you have a reasonable grasp of English.

graypegg 2y ago
At the very end, there's some examples of more literal sounds. It says there hasn't been a study, but I would bet they're a lot more clear with out having to resort of the aviation standard of "just learn basic english". buh-bump is cardiac stuff. wiSShhh... wooosSH is respiratory stuff. Only thing is, I bet you can hear sounds similar to those in a hospital. The "beep beep" they put over it might not be enough. Still a really interesting research topic!
turrican 2y ago
True, but professional pilots from all countries are expected to be fluent in Aviation English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_English
- kmoser 2y ago
  Yes, but in a high-stress environment, your ability to process words--especially those not in your native language--goes down the tubes quickly. Even if you were to tune out sounds to the same degree that you tune out words, at least the sounds would still have a relatively universal meaning, e.g. loud klaxon for big problem, soft chime for minor notification.
flemhans 2y ago
Another good thing is that they allow for talking over them better. The same way you may sing along to an instrumental-only music track using whichever lyrics you prefer.

graypegg 2y ago

I wonder how much information any 1 medical device with an alert knows though. GPWS has the benefit of being part of 1 system, where (I think, no experience here) hospitals seem to treat equipment as singular items that do 1 thing or are meant for a specific area of responsibility in an operation. Like a vitals monitor might not know what the drug pump is doing. I could imagine ventilation? arrhyth-*C-chord*-ARRHYTHMIA! CHECK PUMP! HEART RATE! coming from different devices to be pretty distracting. I think GPWS can set windows of cases where an alert is given. Like, a terrain warning isn't much help when landing. Maybe there's something like that already for medicine, but a device who's job is to consume information from other devices, and only provide alerts based on rules the staff can configure before an operation, could be a thing that's useful.

HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
That's really the problem many here are describing. 60601 mandates what alarms shall be active, but it spans a single device. If you have, e.g., 10 ventilators in a room that are alarming, you can't silence them all with a single button press.
- graypegg 2y ago
  I can kind of understand why it ended up that way. There's some benefit to just assuming, nothing works together. It's at least a consistent state of affairs. You can just wheel in any heart rate monitor, and you only need to understand that heart rate monitor. But it seems like a space that's really ripe for improving. We have very reliable simple protocols you could hook these all into. Imagine it was law that every medical device had to emit the numbers it displays on something like an ODB2 port. Something that can be visually checked to be plugged in, be unplugged and replugged with no handshake, and handle daisy chaining so in the event the "network" breaks in two, or a device goes down, you still get information from the remaining network/it can reroute. For such a highly regulated industry... you kind of wish they would regulate. I guess status quo is also a regulation.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago

unsignedint 2y ago

One significant difference between verbal warning systems in airplanes and those in medical environments, such as hospitals, is the level of environmental control. In an airplane, the environment is highly controlled, with a single set of systems specific to that aircraft. In contrast, hospitals often have multiple systems operating simultaneously in the same room or nearby. This can lead to cognitive overload when multiple systems issue verbal warnings simultaneously. In such scenarios, tone alarms might be easier to manage and differentiate than multiple overlapping verbal warnings.

akira2501 2y ago
> In an airplane, the environment is highly controlled Aircraft systems are developed independently and added as options to planes. Which means they get swapped out, there are variants in capabilities, and multiple manufacturers involved. > This can lead to cognitive overload when multiple systems issue verbal warnings simultaneously. This is a known phenomenon on flights as well. There is some speculation it played a part in Air France 447. The plane technically _was_ telling the pilots the _precise_ problem they faced, but in the sea of other warnings they were entirely lost. > tone alarms might be easier to manage and differentiate than multiple overlapping verbal warnings. If you're a nurse, is the fact you have a ventilation alarm in one room and a temperature alarm in a different room that can be discerned without visual confirmation a useful feature in a health care setting? I think the big difference is your flight has 2 people responsible for hundreds of lives. In the hospital you would hope the ratio would be more favorable.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >Aircraft systems are developed independently and added as options to planes. Which means they get swapped out, there are variants in capabilities, and multiple manufacturers involved. He means there is only ever one aircraft (the one you're flying) and hundreds of patients in a hospital. Imagine if you will, hundreds of GPWS alarms are blaring off all screaming TERRAIN PULL UP TERRAIN PULL UP PULL TERRAIN UP UPTERRAIN PULL TERRPULLAINUP UPULLPTERRAIN TERRPULLAINUP PULLRAIN TEUPR... That's both alarm fatigue[1] and the alarms being wholly impractical to begin with. For starters, which GPWS wants to be pulled up again? You can't know, there's hundreds! And that's even assuming you can make out TERRAIN PULL UP in the maelstrom of noise. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue