A Comparison of Pictorial and Speech Warning Messages in the Modern Cockpit.
Abstract
This thesis presents a current trend in cockpit design to incorporate synthesized speech to present secondary information to the pilot in an attempt to reduce mental workload, and to allow the pilot to keep his or her view out of the cockpit. Theories of multiple resource information processing support both of these reasons to use synthesized speech, but theories of stimulus-central processing-response (S-C-R) compatibility suggest the possibility that spatial information presented visually may have some distinct advantages over speech even though it uses the same input modality as the primary (flying) task. If the response is to be manual, then spatial information is more compatible. Twenty subjects participated in three dual-task experiments which compared tracking and emergency response performance when information was presented in the visual/spatial (pictorial) mode as opposed to the auditory/verbal (speech) mode. In all three experiments the pictorial mode elicited quicker response times, though in one experiment the pictorial mode also elicited more errors. Also, the pictorial subjects improved more with learning than did the speech subjects. While the subjects were not successful at protecting their primary task when they added the secondary task, there were no interactions between the task type and any other factor. These results indicate that more research concerning the spatial advantages of pictorial displays needs to be conducted before too many speech displays are incorporated into the cockpit.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1984
- Accession Number
- ADA151917
Entities
People
- C. P. Robinson
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology