Electronic Map Interpretation in a Dual-Task Context

Abstract

The present experiment was designed to assess the extent to which spatial and verbal-analytic (VA) information processing resources are used in performing a simulated aircraft navigation task. Subjects were required to decide whether a “match” or a “mismatch” existed between a schematic 3D perspective forward field of view and a 2D top-down map. On dual-task trials, this navigation task was concurrently performed with either a VA side-task or with one of two tracking tasks. The data suggest that a VA strategy was most likely to be used when stimuli were simple or were mismatches, whereas a spatial mental rotation strategy was apparently used to confirm complex match stimuli. These results indicate that it may be possible to specify conditions wherein navigation is likely to compete for resources critical to other cockpit activities, such as aircraft control and communication.