Human information processing in navigational displays

Studies of abstract picture-sentence verification tasks have shown that people exhibit directional biases in the way they think about spatial orientation; for example, they decide faster about diagrams involving the term "right" than the term "left." The roles of these and other human limitations in processing displays of target and own-ship movements were evaluated with 2 groups (experienced and inexperienced) of 7 submarine officers each. In 2 1-hr sessions, each officer made 192 judgments of computer-generated diagrams repesenting the linear movements of own ship and target ship. The standard picture verification task paradigm was used to measure response times. Direction of motion, right or left, per se did not reliably influence response time, but the S's level of experience, amount of practice at the task, display truth value, stimulus congruity, and stimulus-response compatibility did. The study demonstrates how the effects of factors isolated through basic research can be demonstrated in operationally relevant tasks. Implications for training are discussed. (20 ref)