Automation and Inattentional Blindness in a Simulated Flight Task

• Published in: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Vol. 58; no. 1; pp. 2058 - 2062
• Main Authors: Kennedy, Kellie D., Stephens, Chad L., Williams, Ralph A., Schutte, Paul C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.09.2014
• ISSN: 1541-9312; 1071-1813; 2169-5067
• DOI: 10.1177/1541931214581433

The study reported herein is a subset of a larger investigation on the role of automation in the context of single pilot aviation operations. This portion of the study focused on the relationship between automation and inattentional blindness (IB) occurrences for a runway incursion. The runway incursion critical stimulus was directly relevant to primary task performance. Participants performed the final five minutes of a landing scenario in one of three automation conditions (autopilot, autothrottle, and manual). Sixty non-pilot participants completed this study and 70% (42 of 60) failed to detect the runway incursion critical stimulus. Participants in the partial automation condition were significantly more likely to detect the runway incursion when compared to those in the full automation condition. The odds of participant detection in the full automation condition did not significantly vary from the manual condition. Participants that detected the runway incursion did not have significantly higher scores on any component of the NASA-TLX compared to those who failed to detect. The relationship demonstrated between automation condition and IB occurrence indicates the role of automation in operational attention detriment.