Effects of Field-of-View Restrictions on Speed and Accuracy of Manoeuvring

Abstract

Effects of field-of-view restrictions on the speed and accuracy of participants performing a real-world manoeuvring task through an obstacled environment were investigated. Although field-of-view restrictions are known to affect human behaviour and to degrade performance for a range of different tasks, the relationship between human manoeuvring performance and field-of-view size is not known. This knowledge is essential to evaluate a trade-off between human performance, cost, and ergonomic aspects of field-of-view limiting devises like head-mounted displays and night vision goggles which are frequently deployed for tasks involving human motion through environments with obstacles. In this study the speed and accuracy of movement were measured in 15 participants (8 men, 7 women, 22.9 ± 2.8 yr. of age) traversing a course formed by three wall segments for different field-of-view restrictions. Analysis showed speed decreased linearly with decreasing field-of-view extent, while accuracy was consistently reduced for all restricted field-of-view conditions. Present results may be used to evaluate cost and performance trade-offs for field-of-view restricting devices deployed to perform time-limited human-locomotion tasks in complex structured environments, such as night-vision goggles and head-mounted displays.