Investigating Attentional Tunneling Through a Flexible Experimentation Environment and Eye Tracking

Abstract

Although attentional tunneling as a phenomenon is at least known since the late 1970ies, it is still an area of high research interest, since it bears connections to current and future applications in head-up and head-down displays. For example, it is still not fully answered to what degree highly dynamic scenarios influence the pilot’s ability to keep up with routine tasks, and vice versa, when and whether dynamic scene changes stay unnoticed under high workload. In order to further investigate attentional tunneling a generic experimentation environment was set up. The core of the environment is DLR’s flexible sensor simulation suite (F3S). This simulation software can be installed on specialized simulation platforms, for example a Vision Station, as well as on standard workstations and can be tuned to a simple view simulation with different levels of realism. It allows for a full and dynamic control of experimental scenarios, for example possible changes in the environment. For larger scenarios several platforms can be coupled to enable the investigation of team situations. As one of its key features the set-up includes a full eye-tracking solution that is further capable of recording dynamic areas of interest. Within a first experiment with a student sample F3S was used as a simple view simulation combined with synthetic approach scenarios. Subjects were asked to detect changes whilst flying highway-in-the-sky approaches with a head-up display. At the same time eye gaze positions where tracked. This novel approach to the investigation of attentional tunneling can prove that an environmental change, even though visually perceived, is not necessarily cognitively processed at the same time.