Abstract
Absence of situational awareness (SA) is a crucial human error that can result in fatal flight accidents. Eye movement patterns are linked closely with the cognitive process of encoding information that pilots seek and perceived in the cockpit. When, how and where a pilot’s eye movements are directed determines the elements in the cockpit that are incorporated into SA. It suggests eye tracking is an appropriate and objective method for use when evaluating a pilot’s attention distribution under high stressful and dynamic flight operation. A head-mounted ASL (Applied Science Laboratory) Mobile Eye which is 76 grams in weight was used to record the eye movements during flight operation in the formal tactical fighter trainer, such as fixation, fixation duration, pupil size and saccade. This research consists of three empirical studies described in six chapters to investigate the relationship between attention distribution and eye movement patterns with a systematic research design. The first chapter, ‘Introduction’, is to describe the background, objectives and structure of research, which is able to help readers create a panoramic view of holistic research. The second chapter, ‘Literature Review’, is focused on the previous studies and findings about attention distribution and situational awareness and the understanding of connections between cognitive process and visual behaviors. The third chapter, ‘Methodology’, is to make description in detail concerning the background of participants; the apparatus adopted; the variables of eye movements analyzed; the related hypotheses, and research design. The fourth chapter and fifth chapter are ‘Results’ and ‘Discussion’ respectively, which are edited with the progress of three studies. At final, the sixth chapter is based on the research findings, potential value and future application to formulate the ‘Conclusion and Recommendation’. The study-1 ascertains eye-tracking devices can aid in capturing pilots’ visual scan patterns. Also, with the assessment of pilots’ perceived workload by NASA-TLX the relationship among visual behaviors, SA performance and cognitive load during the pursuit of a stationary target was investigated. To integrate eye-tracking devices into the simulator will be a creative method for promoting SA training in flight operations. A research article based on the findings of this study-1 was published at the SCI journal of Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine 85 (7): 708-714. The study-2 investigated pilots’ visual scan patterns in order to assess attention distribution during the pursuit of a dynamic target. The results are beneficial to the human-centered design of cockpit interface and in developing training syllabi to improve safety in flight operations. A research article based on the findings of study-2 was accepted by the SCI journal of Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance in February 2015. The study-3 investigated the differences of pilots’ visual scans patterns and attention distributions during the pursuit of a moving target and a stationary target. The results demonstrate pilots allocate their attention distribution depending on the task characteristics and the operational environments, which will be beneficial to future research concerning interface design and syllabi development about human factors training; and in turn, in reducing in-flight perceptual errors. There is an increasing need for further investigation of the relationship between situational awareness performance and the distribution of attention given to the interfaces by the pilot. The analysis of eye movement pattern in real-time tactical maneuvers can help system designers optimize interface displays and visual tool by grouping of information and by reducing cognitive processing time to facilitate pilots performing tactical missions. The findings of current research can help designers aware of cognitive capture during tactical operations which could have negative impact on pilot’s workload and vigilance. Furthermore, the findings can be developed for advanced simulator training syllabi of air-to-air and air-to-surface to improve pilots’ situational awareness. The application of an eye-tracking device combined with a flight simulator is a feasible and effective intervention for improving aviation training in the future.