There have been a number of important advances in aviation technology that have made the safety rating of flying the best that it has ever been. One of the most important advances made has been in the interface that the pilot relies on for their most critical information during flight. New aviation displays have empirically shown a wide range of improvements across pilot performance. Despite these improvements, there is still a high possibility that pilots may miss pertinent information that changes may occur simultaneously with some sort of distraction - a concept known as change blindness. This study analyzed how pilots use their primary flight display during a change blindness paradigm in conjunction with an eye tracker to investigate the link between where the pilot was visually looking and the instruments they were attending. Patterns indicated that pilots use a hub-and-spoke eye scanning pattern during normal flight, focusing mostly in the center of the display. Despite this, change blindness had little effect, emphasizing the display's inherent ease of use.
","abstract_html":"<p>There have been a number of important advances in aviation technology that have made the safety rating of flying the best that it has ever been. One of the most important advances made has been in the interface that the pilot relies on for their most critical information during flight. New aviation displays have empirically shown a wide range of improvements across pilot performance. Despite these improvements, there is still a high possibility that pilots may miss pertinent information that changes may occur simultaneously with some sort of distraction - a concept known as change blindness. This study analyzed how pilots use their primary flight display during a change blindness paradigm in conjunction with an eye tracker to investigate the link between where the pilot was visually looking and the instruments they were attending. Patterns indicated that pilots use a hub-and-spoke eye scanning pattern during normal flight, focusing mostly in the center of the display. Despite this, change blindness had little effect, emphasizing the display's inherent ease of use.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Mayo, Stephen A."],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science in Human Factors & Systems","degree_level":"Thesis - Open Access","degree_discipline":"Human Factors and Systems","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Shawn Michael Doherty","Jason Kring","Michael E. Wiggins"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2009,"date_issued":"2009-10-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2009-10-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:25:45Z","subjects":["change blindness","synthetic vision","night display","eye tracking","pilots","Aviation"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://commons.erau.edu/db-theses/138","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Shawn Michael Doherty","Jason Kring","Michael E. Wiggins"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Mayo, Stephen A."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Human Factors and Systems"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis - Open Access"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science in Human Factors & Systems"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["change blindness","synthetic vision","night display","eye tracking","pilots","Aviation"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://commons.erau.edu/db-theses/138"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["There have been a number of important advances in aviation technology that have made the safety rating of flying the best that it has ever been. One of the most important advances made has been in the interface that the pilot relies on for their most critical information during flight. New aviation displays have empirically shown a wide range of improvements across pilot performance. Despite these improvements, there is still a high possibility that pilots may miss pertinent information that changes may occur simultaneously with some sort of distraction - a concept known as change blindness. This study analyzed how pilots use their primary flight display during a change blindness paradigm in conjunction with an eye tracker to investigate the link between where the pilot was visually looking and the instruments they were attending. Patterns indicated that pilots use a hub-and-spoke eye scanning pattern during normal flight, focusing mostly in the center of the display. Despite this, change blindness had little effect, emphasizing the display's inherent ease of use.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Change Blindness in the Synthetic Vision Primary Flight Display: Comparing Eye Tracking Patterns with Pilot Attention"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Shawn Michael Doherty","Jason Kring","Michael E. Wiggins"],"dc:creator":["Mayo, Stephen A."],"dc:description.abstract":["There have been a number of important advances in aviation technology that have made the safety rating of flying the best that it has ever been. One of the most important advances made has been in the interface that the pilot relies on for their most critical information during flight. New aviation displays have empirically shown a wide range of improvements across pilot performance. Despite these improvements, there is still a high possibility that pilots may miss pertinent information that changes may occur simultaneously with some sort of distraction - a concept known as change blindness. This study analyzed how pilots use their primary flight display during a change blindness paradigm in conjunction with an eye tracker to investigate the link between where the pilot was visually looking and the instruments they were attending. Patterns indicated that pilots use a hub-and-spoke eye scanning pattern during normal flight, focusing mostly in the center of the display. Despite this, change blindness had little effect, emphasizing the display's inherent ease of use.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://commons.erau.edu/db-theses/138"],"dc:subject":["change blindness","synthetic vision","night display","eye tracking","pilots","Aviation"],"dc:title":["Change Blindness in the Synthetic Vision Primary Flight Display: Comparing Eye Tracking Patterns with Pilot Attention"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Human Factors and Systems"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis - Open Access"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science in Human Factors & Systems"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:25:45Z"}