ABSTRACT
Displaying multiple information sources on the same location reduces scanning but increases clutter and the chance of attentional tunnelling. This paper describes an experiment in a flight simulator applying a display with flight instruments and tunnel-in-the-sky symbology superimposed on the world. The primary task was flight path following, with the colour of the tunnel-in-the-sky either the same or deviating from the instrument symbology. Attention and workload were manipulated by adding a manual speed control task and/or a detection task. The main result was that flight path control improved when the colour of the tunnel-in-the-sky deviated. However, performance on the concurrent speed tracking task was worse, indicating an influence of colour on the switching of attention. This result can have important implications for display design (for example, when using colour on a head-up display).
