Comprehension assessment method for attribute distinction among objects

• Main Author: Yuen, Matthew Ming Shen
• Other Authors: Lye Sun Woh
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Engineering::Aeronautical engineering::Air navigation; Engineering::Aeronautical engineering::Aviation
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168310
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The investigation of Situational Awareness (SA) of Air Traffic Control Officers (ATCOs) is a popular field in Air traffic Management (ATM) research where the dynamic and demanding environment requires the maintenance of high levels of SA. Most studies in this field investigate the effects of increasing workload or the increase of automation dependency on SA in the ATC context. Much research has also been done on finding links between physiological methods to the measure of SA. However, there are less research done to investigate how the criticality of information presented to or obtained by an individual affects his/her ability in gaining situational awareness. This paper presents an investigation into the criticality of pictorial information on a person’s ability to gain situational awareness using eye-tracking patterns as a means of comprehension assessment in distinguishing between the target and other background objects. The pictorial information that are investigated in this paper are: Form, shade, size, and Layered Attributes. The eye tracking data revealed that there is a positive correlation between number of participants who were able to locate the target and the number of participants with maximum gaze count and duration on target. The visual scanning patterns of participants have an inverse relationship between the spread of fixations and the difficulty of the task of distinguishing the target from background objects. Therefore, a conclusion was made that a person’s ability to gain situational awareness is affected by the magnitude of the attribute difference between the target and background objects. The results of this investigation showed that the information source influences a person’s ability in gaining SA and further research could be done in this field.