FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
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AVIATION MEDICINE REPORTS

Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-02/22

Title and Subtitle: Aiding planning in air traffic control: An experimental investigation of the effects of perceptual information integration

Report Date: December 2002

Authors: Moertl PM, Canning JM, Gronlund SD, Dougherty MRP, Johansson J, and Mills SH

Abstract: Prior research examined how controllers plan in their traditional environment and identified various information uncertainty by perceptually representing important constraints. This included integrating spatial information on the radar screen with discrete information (planned sequences of air traffic). Canning et al. (1999) and Moertl et al. (2000) reported improved planning performance and decreased workload in the planning aid condition. The purpose of this paper was to determine the source of these performance improvements. Analysis of computer interactions using loglinear modeling showed that the planning interface led to less repetitive, but more integrated, information retrieval gave rise to the performance improvements. Potential applications of this research include the design and evaluation of interface automation that keeps users in active control by modification of perceptual task characteristics.

Key Words: Information Integration, Air Traffic Control, Planning Aids, Strip Marking

No. of Pages: 12