Radar Displays at a glance

It is critically important to accurately convey spatial information in air traffic control displays. In a recent line of research, I am trying to understand how people mentally represent spatial information on radar displays, and whether this representation changes as a function of experience. For example, when a novice looks at a radar display, they may see individual symbols that are inches away from each other, but a trained air traffic controller may see aircraft miles away from each other. Others may maintain this information as a visual image in their minds. Thus, to properly communicate information from such displays, it is important to first understand how different people represent this information.

Modelling Situational Awareness

Additionally, air traffic control simulations have been run in the Center for Human Factors in Advanced Aeronautics Technologies CHAAT lab at CSULB over several years and I am currently conducting a meta-analysis of data collected from these simulations in order to model the components that make up situational awareness (awareness of the task and surroundings) and whether these components can be used to predict performance in air traffic controllers.