An experimental analysis of situation awareness for cockpit display interface evaluation based on flight simulation

Aircraft cockpit display interface (CDI) is one of the most important human-machine interfaces for information perceiving. During the process of aircraft design, situation awareness (SA) is frequently considered to improve the design, as the CDI must provide enough SA for the pilot to maintain the flight safety. In order to study the SA in the pilot-aircraft system, a cockpit flight simulation environment is built up, which includes a virtual instrument panel, a flight visual display and the corresponding control system. Based on the simulation environment, a human-in-the-loop experiment is designed to measure the SA by the situation awareness global assessment technique (SAGAT). Through the experiment, the SA degrees and heart rate (HR) data of the subjects are obtained, and the SA levels under different CDI designs are analyzed. The results show that analyzing the SA can serve as an objective way to evaluate the design of CDI, which could be proved from the consistent HR data. With this method, evaluations of the CDI design are performed in the experimental flight simulation environment, and optimizations could be guided through the analysis.     

负荷条件下注意力分配策略对情境意识的影响

为探究负荷条件下不同注意力分配策略对情境意识（SA）的影响，招募22名被试开展了3种注意力分配策略（平均分配、主次分配、多级分配）×2种脑力负荷（低负荷、高负荷）条件下的被试内双因素设计的实验任务，记录情境意识全面测量技术（SAGAT）、行为绩效、眼动和脑电（EEG）指标为因变量。实验结果表明，在不同脑力负荷下，相较于多级注意力分配策略和主次注意力分配策略，平均注意力分配策略的SAGAT得分和绩效正确率均更低、最小近邻指数（NNI）更大；在高脑力负荷下，相较于多级注意力分配策略，主次注意力分配策略的SAGAT得分更高、绩效反应时间更短并且NNI值更低；SAGAT得分与平均注视时间、NNI、θ相对功率和α相对功率均存在显著低度相关。本研究结果提示，在不同脑力负荷条件下，采用平均注意力分配策略可能导致作业人员的注意力更为分散，从而产生更差的工作绩效和更低的SA水平；而在高脑力负荷条件下，相比于多级注意力分配策略，主次注意力分配策略更有助于作业人员提取关键信息并维持更好的SA水平，但同时可能存在SA丧失的风险；眼动的平均注视时间和NNI指标以及EEG的θ和α相对功率指标具有较好的表征SA的潜力。