A Comparison of Shape/Object Displays,Quasi Shape Displays,and Conventional Univariate Indicators: Integration Benefits or the “Nearer to Thee” Effect?

Abstract

The performance of a complex task, such as piloting an aircraft, requires an operator to effectively process and integrate information from numerous sources. Recent efforts (Beringer, 1985; 1986) have examined the combining of integrated displays to provide both continuous-system-control information and secondary system status/rate information. The present effort reported herein is an attempt to determine the origin of benefits that accrue from shape/object displays; specifically whether they stem from cognitively based integration of information or merely physical proximity of the information. This study examined several formats of information display using conventional (univariate needle indicators) and nonconventional (polar histograms and polar polygons) formats for presenting multiple univariate indices. Some flight control parameters and out-of-tolerance detection rates were affected by the format of the peripheral display while these performance measures plus processing rate of a digit-cancelling side task were affected by flight difficulty (two axes versus three axes; effect in the expected direction). Performance with the polar histogram display was superior in all cases followed closely by performance with the polar polygons, the multiple nonpolar univariate indicators (needles) being least effective for the differentiation task. This suggests that the shape/object displays do allow integration of information beyond that found with simple physical proximity of univariate indicators. A continuation of this research is addressing the problem of system diagnostics using these formats.