Conformal Flight Path Symbology for Head-Up Displays: Defining the Distribution of Visual Attention in Three-Dimensional Space

Abstract

193 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998.Theories of allocation of attention were used to interpret the experimental findings. Attention was found to be more widely distributed in X-Y space when the pilots were flying with the conformal, tunnel-in-the-sky as compared to the partially conformal ILS (instrument landing system) symbology set. There was little evidence that the air-based navigation displays were supporting divided attention in three-dimensional space. The ground-based scene-linked (truly conformal) display indicated promising effects of dividing attention in depth without negative consequences to processing the near domain symbology. Event expectancy was found to modulate pilot performance in the detection of events both on the symbology and in the environment. The phenomenon known as cognitive tunneling is discussed as a possible cause of the inadequate response times in resolving the anomalous events.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD