ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes five human-in-the-loop simulation experiments that investigated the effects of operators' spatial ability (SpA) on their performance of target detection and robotics tasks. The three experiments are: human-robot interaction (HRI) in the context of simulated route reconnaissance missions, concurrent performance of gunner and robotic operator tasks in a multitasking environment, and effects of tactile cueing on concurrent performance of military and robotics tasks in a simulated multitasking environment. Other two experiments are: effects of imperfect automation on concurrent performance of military and robotics tasks in a simulated multitasking environment and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-guided navigation for ground robot operations. SpA has been found to be a significant factor in virtual environment navigation, learning to use a medical teleoperation device, a target search task, and robotics task performance. The cube comparison test and hidden patterns test, and the spatial orientation test, were used to assess participants' SpA in the five experiments.
