Three-dimensional displays for commercial aircraft: A theoretical and empirical evaluation

The requirements for a modern comparison of two-dimensional and three-dimensional perspective displays for aviation are outlined. Previous studies making such a comparison are discussed, and found to not contain the displays and tasks required to fully evaluate the relative tradeoffs of two- and three-dimensional displays, as predicted by the Compatibility Proximity Principle. Two displays containing prediction and preview are designed and compared: one using three orthogonal spatial views, and one using one three-dimensional inside-out perspective view. Performance measures include flight path tracking accuracy during routine flight and during events designed to precipitate the loss of situational awareness, accuracies and response times to three different judgment events designed to evaluate the applicability of the Compatibility Proximity Principle to this issue, the incidence of integrated control actions in several dimensions and subjective workload ratings. The results of the study are evaluated both in terms of relative performance of the two displays, and in terms of the predictions of the Compatibility Proximity Principle.The results show that the perspective display fostered superior lateral and altitude flight path tracking accuracy, while the two-dimensional display fostered superior airspeed tracking accuracy. The Compatibility Proximity Principle was partially supported, but did not predict all the results. It is concluded that the Compatibility Proximity Principle may not be applicable to predicting the tradeoffs between two displays of differing similarity to operators' mental representations of the task at hand, or at least that a Human Factors designer must be extremely careful defining what is considered a task when attempting to apply the Compatibility Proximity Principle to complex display design.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio