Grants and Contracts Details
Description
User-Directed Organization of Displays Under Time Stress
C. Melody Carswell, Ph.D. (PI)
Department of Psychology and Center for Visualization and Virtual Environment
University of Kentucky
This research will evaluate the costs and benefits of giving individual decision makers control over
the way dynamic information is spatially organized during time-critical tasks. User control is sometimes
touted as a way to increase user engagement and situation awareness, as a way to reduce user stress, and as
a means to support decision-making tasks that are unanticipated by display designers. However, there may
also be costs associated with allowing users to customize the spatial layout of task-critical information.
These include performance decrements resulting from the selection of inappropriate spatial organizations,
and a potential increase in mental workload associated with the demands of visualization management.
We will investigate how decision makers select and manipulate spatial layouts while performing
two types of tasks that simulate command and control of first responders. In the Map Task, decisionmakers
will use information about target positions within an urban landscape to make deployment
decisions. They will be able to freely toggle between different spatial viewpoints (3-d, plan-view,
elevations). In the Matrix Task, decision makers will assign emergency response teams to neighborhoods
as a function of information presented in a dynamic matrix of neighborhood descriptors. Matrix cells may
be dragged to any location to meet momentary task demands. Time stress will be manipulated in both tasks
by varying event rates and by presenting countdown clocks that give decision makers different time
windows in which to respond.
Deliverables
Phase 1 will focus on describing the natural (spontaneous) strategies decision makers use to
manage the information visualizations at their disposal. This information will allow us to determine
. whether, in the absence of training in visualization management skills, designer-controlled
rather than user-controlled formats are indicated.
. what type of user training is needed to support the most effective implementation of usercontrolled
formats.
In Phase 2, we will make direct comparisons between the performance of decision makers using
displays of three types: 1) user-controlled (with decision-makers trained in visualization management), 2)
fixed-format, and 3) "smart" task-dependent displays (i.e., displays that automatically switch layouts in
anticipation of changing task demands). We will determine whether, relative to other display design
frameworks, user control influences any of the following outcomes:
. decision makers' stress, mental workload, and situation awareness.
. decision-making efficiency (correct decision per unit time)
Status | Finished |
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Effective start/end date | 2/15/05 → 8/31/07 |
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