Attentional Tunneling and Task Management in Synthetic Vision Displays

This article discusses attentional tunneling as one cause of breakdowns in task management. The phenomenon is defined, and it is shown how it can be induced by head-up display location, and compelling 3-dimensional perspective displays. The results of 6 experiments using a synthetic vision display, with or without a highway in the sky (HITS) display are then summarized, as these reveal the attention tunneling phenomenon manifest in the failure to detect unexpected air hazards. Two factors that enhance this phenomenon are identified: location away from the center of visual scan and the presence of the HITS.