Level of detail in visualization for human autonomy teaming: Speed, accuracy, and workload effects

For human autonomy teaming, information for promoting transparency could lead to information overload, negatively impacting performance and workload. This paper presents an empirical study investigating how different level of details (LODs) about the autonomy represented on the user interface would influence speed, accuracy, and workload. Specifically, we compared visualizations of a lost person model at four different LODs to aid in directing human and unmanned aerial vehicles searchers in search and rescue missions. The lowest LOD was found to support higher accuracy but at the expense of speed. The highest LOD induced the highest workload, while the other three LODs induced lower and similar levels of workload. The results indicate that the LOD in transparent displays could induce a speed and accuracy tradeoff.