Conformality and target cueing: Presentation of symbology in augmented reality

We conducted a study to examine the issues of frame of reference (world-referenced vs. screen-referenced), target expectancy, target cueing, and viewing condition (i.e., one eye versus two) in the design of see-through helmet mounted displays (HMD) in order to determine their effects on tasks of focused and divided attention. Sixteen subjects (8 civilian, 8 military) were asked to detect, identify, and give azimuth information for targets hidden in terrain presented in the far domain (i.e., the world) while performing a monitoring task in the near domain (i.e., the display). The results showed that the presence of cueing aided the target detection task for expected targets but drew attention away from the presence of unexpected targets in the environment. However, analyses support the observation that this effect can be mediated by the use of world-referenced symbology. Displaying symbology to two eyes produced a very slight benefit for target detection when the target was cued.