Attentional Tunneling in Pilots During a Visual Tracking Task With a Head Mounted Display

Area of Science:

• Aviation Psychology
• Human Factors Engineering
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Head-up display (HUD) symbology can cause attentional tunneling, limiting a pilot's focus.
• Visual clutter in flight displays can hinder object identification and task performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if active head aiming using a Helmet Mounted Display (HMD) diverts pilot attention from primary flight tasks.
• To determine if increased visual clutter exacerbates the attentional effects of HMD head aiming.

Main Methods:

• Eighteen military pilots performed simultaneous attitude control and head aiming tasks in a fixed-base simulator.
• Tasks included manual roll disturbance compensation and tracking a visual target with head movements.
• Conditions varied head aiming (active vs. none) and visual clutter (present vs. absent).

Main Results:

• Active head aiming significantly degraded attitude control performance, increasing roll-reversal errors (RREs).
• Head aiming accuracy decreased with larger aircraft roll disturbances.
• Visual clutter did not impact performance on either the attitude control or head aiming tasks.

Conclusions:

• Active head aiming with HMDs can induce attentional tunneling, negatively affecting simultaneous flight control.
• Findings suggest potential implications for HMD design and operational use in military aviation.
• Further research can refine understanding of HMDs' perceptual and cognitive impacts.