Spatial Awareness Biases in Synthetic Vision Systems Displays

Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) create a synthetic clear-day view of the terrain in front of ownship to prevent controlled flight into terrain. To investigate how spatial biases manifest themselves in SVS displays, an experiment was conducted. Eighteen pilots made spatial judgments (relative angle, distance, height, and abeam time) regarding the location of terrain points displayed in 112 5-second videos of a SVS head down display. Judgment errors revealed expected and unexpected spatial biases. Knowledge of these biases will allow SVS engineers to compensate for them and to improve spatial awareness in future SVS designs