Comparison of Performance on a Simulated Target Tracking Task With and Without an Automated Detection Capability

Automated controllers are becoming an integral part of many complex systems. One such controller is an automated detector and tracker (ADT) which aids an operator in detecting and tracking the location of targets such as ships, tanks, or aircraft. To study human use of an ADT, an Automated Detection and Tracking Simulation (ADTS) system has been implemented. The ADTS is a modification of an Automated Tracking Simulation (ATS) that has been used to study the use of an automated tracker (AT) as a function of its reliability and task difficulty. With both systems, the user's task is to detect and track the position of targets. With the ATS, the user has the option of assigning some or all targets to an automated tracker (AT) which mimics the user by trying to update the position of targets that it is responsible for. This capability has the overhead of having to assign and deassign targets every time the AT fails to update a target, but it gives the user ultimate control over the task. The ADTS, in addition to tracking existing targets, has the ability to add targets to the display. The purpose of the current experiment was to determine if task differences between the two systems affected performance. In the ADTS, the user does not have the option of handling some targets manually. This difference makes the user more of a system monitor than an active participant, but it also reduces the number of actions required to handle ADT errors. Task differences were assessed by comparing performance on the two systems when their capabilities were identical. Performance on the ATS was compared with performance on the ADTS with the detection threshold set so that either no targets were added or no non-targets were added. The results indicated no differences in hit rate or response time across the three conditions. However, miss rate decreased significantly and false alarm rate increased significantly between the ATS condition and the second ADTS condition. The