Browsing by Author "Yu, Chung-San"

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    How to apply mnemonic-methods for improving pilots in-flight decision-making
    (2007-06-05T00:00:00Z) Li, Wen-Chin; Harris, Don; Yu, Chung-San
    Two ADM mnemonic-based methods, SHOR (Wohl, 1981) and DESIDE (Murray, 1997), have been demonstrated to significantly improve military pilots’ in-flight decision-making performance in six different tactical situations (Li & Harris, 2005). However, there is little research concerning how to apply these mnemonics in real world. Method: This research applied focus groups consisting of three senior flight instructors and one aviation human factors specialist, to investigate how to apply the SHOR and DESIDE techniques in different types of decision-making scenarios. Results: The qualitative data suggested that SHOR was the best mnemonic in the recognition-primed decision making scenarios; DESIDE was the best mnemonic for the scenarios concerning non-diagnostic procedural decisions and creative problem-solving. Discussion: Pilots would apply SHOR in time-limited and urgent situations as a result of its concise, logical structure. They chose to use DESIDE when time was available for a more comprehensive consideration of the situation.
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    The impact of alerting designs on air traffic controller's eye movement patterns and situation awareness
    (Taylor & Francis, 2018-06-26) Kearney, Peter; Li, Wen-Chin; Yu, Chung-San; Braithwaite, Graham
    This research investigated controller’ situation awareness by comparing COOPANS’s acoustic alerts with newly designed semantic alerts. The results demonstrate that ATCOs’ visual scan patterns had significant differences between acoustic and semantic designs. ATCOs established different eye movement patterns on fixations number, fixation duration and saccade velocity. Effective decision support systems require human-centred design with effective stimuli to direct ATCO’s attention to critical events. It is necessary to provide ATCOs with specific alerting information to reflect the nature of of the critical situation in order to minimize the side-effects of startle and inattentional deafness. Consequently, the design of a semantic alert can significantly reduce ATCOs’ response time, therefore providing valuable extra time in a time-limited situation to formulate and execute resolution strategies in critical air safety events. The findings of this research indicate that the context-specified design of semantic alerts could improve ATCO’s situational awareness and significantly reduce response time in the event of Short Term Conflict Alert activation which alerts to two aircraft having less than the required lateral or vertical separation.
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    Interface design on cabin pressurization system affecting pilot's situation awareness: the comparison between digital displays and pointed displays
    (WIley, 2019-11-08) Li, Wen-Chin; Zakarija, Marko; Yu, Chung-San; McCarty, Pete
    The fundamental approach to improve pilots’ situation awareness would be to reorganise and restructure the presentation of information to fit pilot’s cognitive model on the flight deck. This would facilitate pilots’ perception, understanding, and projection hence making it easier to find the relevant targets. Sixty pilots (30 B-737 pilots; 30 B-777 pilots) participated in this research to investigate pilots’ situation awareness while interacting with digital displays and moving pointed needle displays on cabin pressurization system. The results have shown significant differences on pilots’ perception, understanding and overall situation awareness between digital display and pointed display on the flight deck. Pilots significantly preferred the digital design Cabin Pressurization System which is consistent with the proximity compatibility principle, and the position of the display on the centre instrument panel is easily accessible to both pilots and does not require large head movements. There are some recommendations on the cabin pressurization design including the size of outflow valve position indicator which should be significantly increased to provided saliency of information; colour coding should be used on cabin altitude and differential pressure indicator to mark critical cabin altitude; and standard operating procedures shall include cabin altitude and differential pressure reading by pilot monitoring. The final and completed solution to the issues on the cabin pressurization system is to redesign the scattered pointed displays as integrated digital displays to fit the human-centred principle.
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    Pilots' eye movement patterns during performing air-to-air mission
    (EAAP, 2014-09-26) Li, Wen-Chin; Yu, Chung-San; Li, Lon-Wen; Greaves, Matthew
    Eye movement patterns are linked closely with the cognitive process of encoding information that pilots seek and perceive in the cockpit. A total of 30 qualified mission-ready military pilots participated in this research. The ages of participants are between 26 and 51 years old (M=29, SD=6); and total flying hours between 310 and 2920 hours (M=844, SD=720). Eye movement data were collected by a head-mounted ASL (Applied Science Laboratory) Mobile Eye combined with a jet fighter simulator which is a dynamic high fidelity trainer that replicates actual aircraft performance, navigation and weapon systems. The scenario was an air-to-air (AA) task. To complete the task, pilots have to search for the target with eye contact, pursue for aiming at the target, and lock-on for pick-off. The results showed there were significant differences in pilots’ fixations among the five different areas of interest (AOIs), p<.001. Also, there were significant differences in pupil size (p<.001) for three different operating phases between experienced and less-experienced pilots; however, the average saccade velocity showed no difference. Understanding the pilot’s visual scan pattern for attention distribution whilst pursuing a dynamic target will facilitate aviation professionals in developing an effective training syllabus to improve safety of flight operation.
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    Pilots’ visual scan pattern and attention distribution during the pursuit of a dynamic target
    (Aerospace Medical Association, 2016-10-17) Yu, Chung-San; Wang, Eric Min-yang; Li, Wen-Chin; Braithwaite, Graham
    Introduction: The current research is investigating pilots’ visual scan patterns in order to assess attention distribution during air-to-air manoeuvers. Method: A total of thirty qualified mission-ready fighter pilots participated in this research. Eye movement data were collected by a portable head-mounted eye-tracking device, combined with a jet fighter simulator. To complete the task, pilots have to search for, pursue, and lock-on a moving target whilst performing air-to-air tasks. Results: There were significant differences in pilots’ saccade duration (msec) in three operating phases including searching (M=241, SD=332), pursuing (M=311, SD=392), and lock-on (M=191, SD=226). Also, there were significant differences in pilots’ pupil sizes (pixel2) of which lock-on phase was the largest (M=27237, SD=6457), followed by pursuing (M=26232, SD=6070), then searching (M=25858, SD=6137). Furthermore, there were significant differences between expert and novice pilots on the percentage of fixation on the HUD, time spent looking outside the cockpit, and the performance of situational awareness (SA). Discussion: Experienced pilots have better SA performance and paid more attention to the HUD but focused less outside the cockpit when compared with novice pilots. Furthermore, pilots with better SA performance exhibited a smaller pupil size during the operational phase of lock-on whilst pursuing a dynamic target. Understanding pilots’ visual scan patterns and attention distribution are beneficial to the design of interface displays in the cockpit and in developing human factors training syllabi to improve safety of flight operations.
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    Pilots’ visual scan pattern and situation awareness in flight operations
    (Aerospace Medical Association, 2014-04-18) Yu, Chung-San; Wang, Eric Min-yang; Li, Wen-Chin; Braithwaite, Graham
    Introduction: Situation awareness (SA) is considered an essential prerequisite for safe flying. If the impact of visual scanning patterns on a pilot’s situation awareness could be identified in flight operations, then eye-tracking tools could be integrated with flight simulators to improve training efficiency. Method: Participating in this research were 18 qualified, mission-ready fighter pilots. The equipment included high-fidelity and fixed-base type flight simulators and mobile head-mounted eye-tracking devices to record a subject’s eye movements and SA while performing air-to-surface tasks. Results: There were significant differences in pilots’ percentage of fixation in three operating phases: preparation (M = 46.09, SD = 14.79), aiming (M = 24.24, SD = 11.03), and release and break-away (M = 33.98, SD = 14.46). Also, there were significant differences in pilots’ pupil sizes, which were largest in the aiming phase (M = 27,621, SD = 6390.8), followed by release and break-away (M = 27,173, SD = 5830.46), then preparation (M = 25,710, SD = 6078.79), which was the smallest. Furthermore, pilots with better SA performance showed lower perceived workload (M = 30.60, SD = 17.86), and pilots with poor SA performance showed higher perceived workload (M = 60.77, SD = 12.72). Pilots’ percentage of fixation and average fixation duration among five different areas of interest showed significant differences as well. Discussion: Eye-tracking devices can aid in capturing pilots’ visual scan patterns and SA performance, unlike traditional flight simulators. Therefore, integrating eye-tracking devices into the simulator may be a useful method for promoting SA training in flight operations, and can provide in-depth understanding of the mechanism of visual scan patterns and information processing to improve training effectiveness in aviation.
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    Pilot’s attention distributions between chasing a moving target and a stationary target
    (Aerospace Medical Association, 2016) Li, Wen-Chin; Yu, Chung-San; Braithwaite, Graham; Greaves, Matthew J.
    Introduction: Attention plays a central role in cognitive processing; ineffective attention may induce accidents in flight operations. The objective of current research was to examine military pilots’ attention distributions between chasing a moving target and a stationary target. Method: Thirty-seven mission-ready F-16 pilots participated in the current research. Subjects’ eye movements were collected by a portable head-mounted eye-tracker during tactical training in a flight simulator. The scenarios of chasing a moving target (air-to-air) and a stationary target (air-to-surface) consist of three operational phases; searching, aiming and lock-on to the targets. Results: The findings demonstrated significant differences in pilots’ percentage of fixation during searching phase between air-to-air (M=37.57, SD=5.72) and air-to-surface (M=33.54, SD=4.68). Fixation duration can indicate pilots’ sustained attention to the trajectory of a dynamic target during dog-fight manoeuvers. Aiming for the stationary target with larger pupil size (M=27105 pixel2, SD=6565 pixel2) reflects higher cognitive loading than aiming to the dynamic target (M=23864 pixel2, SD=8762 pixel2). Discussion: Pilots’ visual behavior is not only closely related to attention distribution, but also significantly associated with task characteristics. Military pilots demonstrated various visual scan patterns for searching and aiming to different types of targets based on the research settings of flight simulator. The findings would facilitate system designers’ understandings of military pilots’ cognitive processes during tactical operations. It will assist human-centered interface design to improve pilots’ situational awareness. The application of an eye-tracking device integrated with a flight simulator is a feasible and cost-effective intervention to improve efficiency and safety of tactical training.