Abstract
Several experiments were conducted to examine the effect of brightness highlighting on search of a target aircraft among distractor aircraft within a cockpit display of traffic information (CDTI). The present experiment partially replicated the design of one of these experiments, adding an examination of eye movements. The display presented homogenous all bright, all dim, or mixed bright and dim aircraft. Within the mixed display, target aircraft were non-predictive and either bright or dim. Results showed that with the mixed display, participants yielded slower detection times, exhibited more eye fixations, and searched with longer paths, compared to the homogenous all bright or dim displays. The duration of the fixation and the speed of eye movements did not show any difference between the homogeneous and mixed displays. The present detection time analysis did not replicate previous experimental results and this is likely due to the fewer trials given in the current experiment. The present results demonstrated how using highlighting to segregate information domains may impose costs on visual search performance in the early stages of a search task.
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