Vision is the dominant sense used by pilots and visual misperception has been identified as the primary contributing factor in numerous aviation mishaps, resulting in hundreds of fatalities and major resource loss. Despite physiological limitations for sensing and perceiving their aviation environment, pilots can often make the required visual judgments with a high degree of accuracy and precision. At the same time, however, visual illusions and misjudgments have been cited as the probable cause of numerous aviation accidents, and in spite of technological and instructional efforts to remedy some of the problems associated with visual perception in aviation, mishaps of this type continue to occur. Clearly, understanding the role of visual perception in aviation is key to improving pilot performance and reducing aviation mishaps. This book is the first dedicated to the role of visual perception in aviation, and it provides a comprehensive, single-source document encompassing all aspects of aviation visual perception. Thus, this book includes the foundations of visual and vestibular sensation and perception; how visual perceptual abilities are assessed in pilots; the pilot’s perspective of visual flying; a summary of human factors research on the visual guidance of flying; examples of specific visual and vestibular illusions and misperceptions; mishap analyses from military, commercial and general aviation; and, finally, how knowledge from these other disciplines is being used to create the next generation of aviation visual perception. Aviation Visual Perception: Research, Misperception and Mishaps is intended to be used for instruction in academia, as a resource for human factors researchers, design engineers, and for instruction and training in the pilot community.
Errors in estimating time to contact Figure 5.8 Visual occlusion and altitude maintenance Figure 5.9 Relative bearing of climbing/descending aircraft Figure 5.10 Midair collision data for closure rate Figure 6.1 Black Hole illusion depiction Figure 6.2 Visual null theory of runway perception Figure 6.3 Dual-processing size/shape constancy Figure 6.4 Size constancy over terrain Figure 6.5 Terrain sloping illusions Figure 6.6 Perception of various sized runways Figure 6.7 Runway sloping
displays, night-vision goggles, and forward-looking infrared systems. SVSs are the combination of all of these technologies plus global-position systems that use known terrain-data bases. SVSs may also incorporate flight-path displays, real-time weather information, as well as traffic-conflict and avoidance data. Any obstacle, object, or specific area that can be defined with geographic coordinates can potentially be displayed to the pilot via the SVS imagery (see Figure 8.8 for some of the
of Tables Foreword 1 Vision in Aviation The Challenge Aviation Mishap Involving Visual Misperceptions Visual Perception Allows for Heroism Our Approach References 2 Sensation and Perception Foundations Bottom-up versus Top-down Processes and Theories of Vision Attention The Physiology of Vision Specialized Visual Processing (Color, Depth, Motion) Visual Cue Integration and Applications in Aviation The Vestibular System and Body Perception Spatial Disorientation: Vision and
or landing directly into the sun, flying over water in sunshine, and formation flight as situations where glare can inhibit performance (Kumagai et al., 2005). Nakagawara et al. (2004) used the NTSB Aviation Accident/Incident Database to determine the prevalence of glare-related events in civilian flight. Of the total of 25,226 accidents investigated, glare from the sun was identified as a contributing factor in 130 (0.5 percent). The most common types of accidents associated with glare were
spatial disorientation because of the impoverished visual cues that lead to inaccurate visual perception. The Flight Safety Foundation Approach and Landing Accident Reduction Tool Kit (2000) simply stated “visual approaches at night typically present a greater risk because of fewer visual references, and because of visual illusions and spatial disorientation” (p. 103). Again, this seems to state the obvious, but given the number of accidents it cannot be stated enough. Throughout this section,
