Cognitive factors in aviation display design

Three-dimensional perspectives are being considered for a variety of applications, such as conformal HUD imagery, tunnel primary flight displays, enhanced terrain renderings to supplement GPWS, traffic and weather displays, or displays of FMS automation modes (Owen and Suiter, 1997). In considering the strengths and limitations of such displays, in either head-up or head-down location, the designer and human factors practitioner must carefully evaluate the weaknesses of each (keyhole, distortion, and compellingness of the immersed perspective; ambiguity of the tethered perspective), as well as the task factors that may modulate the negative impact of these weaknesses. These factors must be contrasted with the visual scanning imposed by standard planar or coplanar head down displays. It is also the case that a number of these weaknesses may be partially offset by introducing various cognitive "remediations" such as visual momentum or artificial frameworks, which we do not address in this paper (but see Olmos et al., 1997; Ellis, 1993). Thus effective "pilot centered" cockpit design cannot rely exclusively on the 3D graphics technology offered by the computer engineer, but must receive the input from the human factors community.