Effects of Scene-Linked Symbology on Flight Performance

Abstract

Previous research has shown that the presence of aircraft head-up display (HUD) symbology indicating altitude improves maintenance of altitude, but at a cost to (ground) path-following ability. We term this the altitude/path performance trade-off. Differential motion between HUD symbology and the world has been posited as leading to attentional tunneling on the symbology at the expense of flight information in the world. In the first of two flight simulation studies, scene-linked symbology was tested to see if the absence of differential motion cues between the symbology and the world would negate attentional tunneling and the resulting performance trade-off. This not only proved to be the case, but relative to a control condition with no explicit altitude display, scene-linked symbology yielded improved altitude and path performance. In the second study, an attempt was made to discern the source of improvement in path performance found with the use of scene-linked symbology. The result suggests that flight task integration and fusion of the symbology with the world permits object-based parallel processing benefits that are evidenced by improved path-following performance.