3D Navigation and Integrated Hazard Display in Advanced Avionics: Workload, Performance, and Situation Awareness

We examined the ability for pilots to estimate traffic location in an Integrated Hazard Display, and how such estimations should be measured. Twelve pilots viewed static images of traffic scenarios and then estimated the outside world locations of queried traffic represented in one of three display types (2D coplanar, 3D exocentric, and split-screen) and in one of four conditions (display present/blank crossed with outside world present/blank). Overall, the 2D coplanar display best supported both vertical (compared to 3D) and lateral (compared to split-screen) traffic position estimation performance. Costs of the 3D display were associated with perceptual ambiguity. Costs of the split screen display were inferred to result from inappropriate attention allocation. Furthermore, although pilots were faster in estimating traffic locations when relying on memory, accuracy was greatest when the display was available