ABSTRACT
One of the information sources for air traffic controllers to monitor the traffic is aircraft datablocks. Such datablocks are typically composed of many fields depicting various aircraft information. The objective of this study was to understand how the objective datablock complexity and datablock exposure time affected the monitoring task learning process and performances. We trained 10 college students for six days to monitor datablocks presented briefly on a computer screen. We arbitrarily assigned a normal or abnormal status for each field. The participants' task was to indicate the status of the datablock as normal or abnormal after viewing the datablock. We varied the objective complexity by changing the number of datablock fields from 6 to 12, and the exposure time of the datablock from 3s to 0.3s. Participants' performance was measured as proportion correct of monitoring task. We found that individuals were able to learn to quickly monitor DBs, and the learning effect existed during the six days of training. The datablock with six fields led to lower level of experienced complexity, whereas the datablocks with 9 and 12 fields led to higher level of experienced complexity. This differing level of experienced complexity was demonstrated with differences in the average proportion correct in monitoring task, number of training trials needed, and the subjective mental workload. When the exposure time was longer than or equal to ls, the monitoring task was easier to learn and perforn1. But when the exposure time was shorter than ls, the task became more challenging. The capacity of learning was constrained by both the DB complexity and the exposure time. The results implicated that designing DBs for air traffic control displays should consider both
the number of items in the DB and the time that users (e.g, controllers) actually spent on viewing a DB in monitoring air traffic situations.
