The triangle in the column heading in your screenshot shows your tracks are being sorted by the
Sort Artist column and nothing else.
I think you may have misunderstood how sorting is applied.
The preferences dialog is where you define which fields are used for each of the sorting sets numbered 1 to 8.
But after you've set those up,
you still need to apply one to the library view.
Click on the view heading above the
Column Browser (where it says
Album and Tracks etc. just outside the top-left corner of your screenshot) and select one of your sorting options there:
Bee excellent to each other...