Office of Aerospace Medicine Technical Reports
FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-78/15
Title and Subtitle: Comparison of the visual perception of a runway model in pilots and nonpilots during simulated night landing approaches
Report Date: March 1978
Authors: Mertens HW
Abstract: At night, reduced visual cues may promote illusions and a dangerous tendency for pilots to fly low during approaches to landing. Relative motion parallax (a difference in rate of apparent movement of objects in the visual field), a cue that can contribute to visual judgments of glide path angle, was studied for its effect on the nighttime approach problem in two experiments. Neither flying experience nor a visual frame of reference enhanced sensitivity to relative motion parallax. However, errors in horizontal adjustments were smaller in pilots, indicating that flying experience enhances other cues in the runway image. Direct judgments of approach angle magnitude indicated overestimation by an approximate factor of 2. These findings give further evidence of large visual illusions in the nighttime situation and indicate that the ineffectiveness of relative motion parallax may be an important part of the night approach problem.
Key Words: Aircraft landing, Visual illusions, Motion Parallax
No. of Pages: 22
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-78/15
Title and Subtitle: Comparison of the visual perception of a runway model in pilots and nonpilots during simulated night landing approaches
Report Date: March 1978
Authors: Mertens HW
Abstract: At night, reduced visual cues may promote illusions and a dangerous tendency for pilots to fly low during approaches to landing. Relative motion parallax (a difference in rate of apparent movement of objects in the visual field), a cue that can contribute to visual judgments of glide path angle, was studied for its effect on the nighttime approach problem in two experiments. Neither flying experience nor a visual frame of reference enhanced sensitivity to relative motion parallax. However, errors in horizontal adjustments were smaller in pilots, indicating that flying experience enhances other cues in the runway image. Direct judgments of approach angle magnitude indicated overestimation by an approximate factor of 2. These findings give further evidence of large visual illusions in the nighttime situation and indicate that the ineffectiveness of relative motion parallax may be an important part of the night approach problem.
Key Words: Aircraft landing, Visual illusions, Motion Parallax
No. of Pages: 22
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