This study investigates how characteristics such as threshold, modality, and number of alert levels for the alarm system in cockpit displays of traffic information (CDTIs) impact concurrent task (flight control) performance and response to potential conflicts. In two experiments, student pilots performed a tracking task analogous to flight control while simultaneously monitoring for air traffic conflicts with the aid of a CDTI alert as the threshold, modality, and level of alert was varied. Results showed that as the alerting system became more prone to false alerts, pilot compliance decreased and concurrent performance improved. There was some evidence of auditory preemption with auditory alerts as the false alarm rate increased. Finally, there was no benefit to a three-level system over a two-level system. The 4:1 false alarm-to-miss ratio employed here improved accuracy and concurrent task performance. More research is needed on the potential benefits of likelihood alerting.
Abstract