Impact of Advanced Display Features on Situation Awareness,Workload,and Performance of Complex Military Tasks

Abstract

The objective of this research was to evaluate the effect of advanced interface features on an operator's ability to perform the duties and responsibilities associated with the role of Platoon Leader (PL); maintain and monitor vehicles in a formation, respond to communications, and maintain security around his vehicle. Participants conducted a military convoy mission using a basic interface (representative of the current force technology) and an interface with advanced warnings, cautions, and alerts (WCAs). Participants completed two missions with each interface configuration. Results showed that the advanced interface significantly improved the PL's ability to respond correctly and quickly to vehicles deviating from the formation. Further, participants reported better situation awareness and lower workload with the advanced interface than the baseline interface. Appropriately applied advanced formation tools such as vehicle status information and WCAs do improve military effectiveness and are important for military operations.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Cummings

M.L.

Kilgore

R.M.

Wang

Tijerina

Kochhar

D.S.

(2007). Effects of single versus multiple warnings on driver performance. Human Factors, 49, 1097–1106.

Department of the Army (May, 2004). Field Manual 2–0. Intelligence.

Department of the Army (July, 2001). Field Manual 3–90. Tactics.

Hart

S.G.

Staveland

L.E.

(1987). Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of empirical and theoretical research. In Hancock

P.A.

Meshkati

Eds., Human mental workload. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Taylor

R.M.

(1990). Situational awareness rating technique (SART): The development of a tool for aircraft systems design, in Situational Awareness in Aerospace Operations. Neuilly Sur Seine, France: NATO-AGARD, 1990. AGARD-CP-478.

Veitengruber

J.E.

(1977). Design Criteria for Aircraft Warning, Caution and Advisory Alerting Systems. Journal of Aircraft 1978. 0021–8669. vol. 15 no. 9 (574–581).

Wickens

C.D.

Colcombe

(2007). Dual-task performance consequences of imperfect alerting associated with a cockpit display of traffic information. Human Factors, 49, 839–850.

Wickens

C.D.

Rantanen

E.M.

(2007). Effects of conflict alerting system reliability and task difficulty on pilots' conflict detection with cockpit display of traffic information. Ergonomics, 50, 112–130.