A comparison of 'on-thigh' vibrotactile, combined visual-vibrotactile, and visual-only alerting systems for the cockpit under visually demanding conditions

摘要

In the cockpit, performance is prone to break down. Conveying crucial information through thetactile modality, which requires little to no additional effort, has been previously examined asmeans to improve performance and safety. Previously, we demonstrated the ability of the onthighvibrotactile alerting display to convey directional cues in the vertical plane. Wehypothesized that tactile directional alerting cues would be beneficial in a visually loaded multitaskingenvironment. In the current study, two tasks were introduced simultaneously: a directionaltask where participants respond to directional cues (visual, tactile, or combination of both), and avisual-memory recall task where participants identify, count and recall objects embedded in flightmovies. Response time, accuracy and subjective workload were evaluated. Performance in thememory recall task and subjective workload were in favor of the combined tactile & visualconfiguration. No performance difference was found between visual and tactile & visual in thedirectional task. We conclude that the tactile & visual configuration may allow operators tochoose a strategy in which perceptual and cognitive resources are better utilized.