Interactions between the Design Factors of Airplane Artificial Horizon Displays

Abstract

We investigated three interaction effects between the design factors of artificial horizon displays in the context of an airplane upset recovery task. To explain some inconsistent results from previous research about the superiority of moving-airplane designs, we hypothesized and explored interactions between moving element, roll scale/index, display size, and symbol size. A 24 factorial experiment was conducted with 20 novice subjects on a desktop simulator. Moving element was found to interact with display size and symbol size in an unexpected fashion, although the size of the effects was small. Spatially compatible roll scale/index was strongly supported, while the evidence for moving-airplane was weaker than expected. We explained that when redundant roll angle information is present, subjects tend to focus on the indication that appears most usable to them. Roll scale/index appeared to be more compelling than airplane symbol and horizon for roll indication purposes.