Effect of visual field asymmetries on performance while utilizing aircraft attitude symbology

This research explores the effect of symbology placement on human performance for users of head-mounted augmented reality displays. A pair of experiments examined the impact on visual performance asymmetries when perceiving complex, meaningful visual stimuli, such as the Arc Segment Attitude Reference (ASAR). The ASAR symbology represents an aircraft’s vertical flight path and roll angles. Experiment 1 examined participants’ performance in making categorical and coordinate judgments regarding various attitudes of the ASAR and a Gabor patch which were briefly presented in the peripheral visual field. The results were consistent with the horizontal-vertical anisotropy literature, which implies that performance would be better for stimuli placed on the horizontal than the vertical meridian. Experiment 2 assessed asymmetries for continuously presented stimuli in a dual-task environment which involved a centrally located, demanding visual psychomotor task and monitoring of the ASAR or Gabor stimuli at the same peripheral locations as Experiment 1. No performance differences were found as a function of peripheral stimulus placement. However, eye tracking, particularly for a subset of the participants suggest they employed a more efficient visual process to monitor the peripheral stimuli when the stimuli were placed on the horizontal meridian.