Indication of Direction with Digital Map – Effects of Display Size and Time Constraints

摘要

Dismounted soldiers today use digital support for navigation and presentation of direction, and most likelysuch support will become standard equipment. Therefore, it is important to investigate how factors such asdisplay size and performance time influence the ability to transform information on the map to positions inthe terrain. An experiment was performed with two display sizes (3.5-inch and 9.7-inch). The participants’task was to indicate direction to positions in the terrain represented by target symbols on a digital map withfour different time limits (5s, 10s, 15s, and 20s). Participants with low spatial ability (measured by PTSOT)had lower precision with the small display, whereas participants with medium and high spatial abilityperformed equally well with both displays. When the time limit was shortened, task load increased, butperformance was not affected. The results also confirm that important aspects of spatial ability can bediscriminated by PTSOT.