ABSTRACT
This paper describes the results of two studies that evaluated the cognitive compatibility of visual warning aids for aircraft. Three visual warning representations were used: pictorial, textual, and combined pictorial and textual, together with a bank of sixteen aircraft dials. Participants were required to indicate, by pressing a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response key as quickly and as accurately as possible, whether a warning matched a disparate dial reading. In experiment one, participants were asked to make spatial judgements (left or right engine). In experiment two, participants were asked to make semantic judgements based on temperature or pressure. The results showed that, for responses concerning spatial attributes, a pictorial, spatially compatible warning produced performance advantages. However, when responding to categorical attributes textual warnings gave better performance. It was concluded that pictorial warnings may provide performance advantages for spatial relations whereas textual warnings may provide greater utility for understanding.
