Regarding Pilot Usage of Display Technologies for Improving Awareness of Aircraft System States

ed systems and the procedures for ng in complexity. This interacting trend places a larger burden on pilots to manage increasing amounts of information and to understand system interactions. The result is an increase in the likelihood of loss of airplane state awareness (ASA). One way to gain more insight into this issue is through experimentation using objective measures of visual behavior. This study summarizes an analysis of oculometer data obtained during a high-fidelity flight simulation study that included a variety of complex pilot-system interactions that occur in current flight decks, as well as several planned for the next generation air transportation system. The study was comprised of various scenarios designed to induce low and high energy aircraft states coupled with other emulated causal factors in recent accidents. Three different display technologies were evaluated in this recent pilot-in-the-loop study conducted at NASA Langley Research Center. These technologies include a stall recovery guidance algorithm and display concept, an enhanced airspeed control indication of when the automation is no longer actively controlling airspeed, and enhanced synoptic diagrams with corresponding simplified electronic interactive checklists. Multiple data analyses were performed to understand how the 26 participating airline pilots were observing ASA-related information provided during different stag specific events within these stages

Answering a Questionnaire Using Eyetracking

The beginning of eye tracking research lies far back in the past. Since eye tracking costs decreased over the past years, the usage of an eye tracker for everyday matters, like the interaction with a personal device, becomes more and more attractive. In the present work, the realization of interacting with a computer interface with only the help of an eye tracker is illustrated. The conducted study examines the acceptance and usability of such a system. Therefore, three different interaction methods have been implemented. In a study, the participants had to complete a questionnaire with those interaction methods using a Windows application and a low-cost eye tracking device. All in all, the study results imply that the number of negative aspects about this system outweigh the positive ones. The biggest issue was the restriction of mobility during the usage of the tracking device. In addition, the usage of the system turned out to be rather exhausting for the eyes. Generally speaking, among the three implemented interaction methods, the interaction method that combines gaze with a second input modality (a keyboard) scored best in terms of interaction speed and usefulness considering the completion of a questionnaire

SMOOVS: Towards calibration-free text entry by gaze using smooth pursuit movements

Gaze-based text spellers have proved useful for people with severe motor diseases, but lack acceptance in general human-computer interaction. In order to use gaze spellers for public displays, they need to be robust and provide an intuitive interaction concept. However, traditional dwell- and blink-based systems need accurate calibration which contradicts fast and intuitive interaction. We developed the first gaze speller explicitly utilizing smooth pursuit eye movements and their particular characteristics. The speller achieves sufficient accuracy with a one-point calibration and does not require extensive training. Its interface consists of character elements which move apart from each other in two stages. As each element has a unique track, gaze following this track can be detected by an algorithm that does not rely on the exact gaze coordinates and compensates latency-based artefacts. In a user study, 24 participants tested four speed-levels of moving elements to determine an optimal interaction speed. At 300 px/s users showed highest overall performance of 3.34 WPM (without training). Subjective ratings support the finding that this pace is superior

Enhancing the Performance of Eye and Head Mice: A Validated Assessment Method and an Investigation into the Performance of Eye and Head Based Assistive Technology Pointing Devices

This work poses the question "Could eye and head based assistive technology device interaction performance approach that of basic hand mouse interaction?" To this aim, the work constructs, validates, and applies a detailed and comprehensive pointing device assessment method suitable for assistive technology direct pointing devices, it then uses this method to add enhancement to these devices, finally it then demonstrates that such enhanced eye or head based pointing can approach that of basic hand mouse interaction and be a viable and usable interaction method for people with high-level motor disabilities. Eye and head based pointing devices, or eye and head mice, are often used by high-level motor disabled people to enable computer interaction in the place of a standard desktop hand mouse. The performance of these eye and head mice pointing devices when used for direct manipulation on a standard graphical user interface has generally been regarded as poor in comparison to that of a standard desktop hand mouse, thus putting users of head and eye mice at a disadvantage when interacting with computers. The performance of eye and head based pointing devices during direct manipulation on a standard graphical user interface has not previously been investigated in depth, and the reasons why these devices seem to demonstrate poor performance have not been determined in detail. Few proven methods have been demonstrated and investigated that enhance the performance of these devices based on their performance during direct manipulation. Importantly, and key to this work is that, no validated assessment method has been constructed to allow such an investigation. This work seeks to investigate the performance of eye and head based pointing devices during direct manipulation by constructing and verifying a test method suitable for the detailed performance assessment of eye and head based assistive technology pointing devices. It then uses this method to determine the factors influencing the performance of eye and head mice during direct manipulation. Finally, after identifying these factors, this work hypothesises, and then demonstrates that applying suitable methods for addressing these factors can result in enhanced performance for eye and head mice. It shows that the performance of these enhanced devices can approach the performance of standard desktop hand mice with the use of highly experienced users, together with the enhancement of a supporting modality for object manipulation, and a supporting interface enhancement for object size magnification; thus demonstrating that these devices can approach and equal the performance of basic hand mouse interaction

Defining Areas of Interest Using Voronoi and Modified Voronoi Tesselations to Analyze Eye-Tracking Data

Eye tracking is a technology used to track where someone is looking. Eye-tracking technology is often used to study what people focus on when looking at a photo of another person. The eye-tracking technology records points on a photo that a person is looking at. When the photo being looked at shows a person, the points can be categorized by body part such as head, right hand, left hand, and torso. This thesis presents the use of partially circular areas to define the body parts of the person in the photo and therefore categorize the points collected by the eye-tracker. The participants for this study consisted of 20 people who practiced yoga and 20 people who did not practice yoga. These participants were asked to look at 22 pictures of a person standing in different postures. In this thesis, we analyze differences in how those who practice yoga look at the pictures compared to those who do not practice yoga using the partially circular areas to define where the points belong