VlBROTACTILE DISPLAYS FOR IMPROVING SPATIAL AWARENESS

This paper discusses the effects of tactile cueing on performance in a fixed base simulated helicopter hover task. Sixteens active-duty military helicopter pilots participated in a repeated measures two minute stationary hover test. Participants performed the hover task under four treatment conditions; tactile cueing (on/off) and secondary arithmetic task (on/ofT). Following each 2-minute hover, participants reported subjective situation awareness using the five point China Lake Situation Awareness Scale (CLSA). Total time on target improved with tactile cueing with a significant task by display interaction. Performance on the arithmetic task remained consistent across conditions and no significant change was seen on CLSA scores between the tactile/no tactile conditions. Results demonstrate that tactile cues can be used to improve performance in spatial tasks, such as hovering a helicopter, especially in the presence of distracting secondary workload tasks. The lack of a significant difference in SA scores may be more related to the pilots’ overall high confidence in their SA, despite their variation in performance, and highlights some of the difficulties encountered when attempting to measure SA.