Effect of number of interaction modalities and complexity on pilot performance for civil aircraft flying tasks
摘要
With the increasing complexity of human-computer interaction activities in civil aircraft cockpits, the introduction of multimodal interaction to improve cockpit simplicity, efficiency, and safety is imminent. Effects of four interaction modalities (single voice commands, phased voice commands, voice, gesture, and eye-movement, and voice and eye-movement interaction) on flight performance were explored. In a 2 × 2 within-subjects flight simulation experiment, we observed that, under complex conditions, the use of multimodal interaction significantly reduced mental demand and shortened task completion time. These results suggest that the impact of complex conditions can be minimized by multimodal interaction. Furthermore, the combination of gestures and eye movements caused a shortage of visual resources, which affected pilot performance, as evidenced by faster task completion times and a better user experience for voice and eye-movement interaction compared to voice, gesture, and eye-movement interaction. The above conclusions indicated that voice and eye-movement interaction was ideal for the next-generation civil aircraft cockpit for flight tasks.