Assessment and Development of Oculomotor Flying Skills by the Application of the Channel Theory of Vision.

Abstract

Abstract : Some camouflaged objects that cannot be seen when stationary are visible when moving. When visible, these objects are defined by motion contrast. In central vision the spatial receptive field area is 5 times larger and temporal integration time is 12 times longer for such objects than for objects defined by brightness contrast. Both object detection threshold and motion threshold vary logarithmically with eccentricity, the effect of eccentricity being less for larger targets. In contrast to the 100:1 increase in spatial summation area between 0 deg and 16 deg ecentricity, temporal summation changes by only 40%. Visual sensitivity to boundaries defined by chromatic contrast alone falls when the retinal image is stabilized. Temporal modulation is essential for boundary visibility, but these changes can be either whole-field flicker or motion of the whole field. Form detection involves channels tuned to narrow ranges of spatial frequency and orientations. But at the discrimination stage, orientation information is freely available across spatial frequencies and spatial frequency information is freely available across orientations. Airborne and laboratory tests of vision correlated with low-level bombing accuracy and with success in air-to-air combat using telemetry-tracked A-4 and F-14 jet aircraft. Either motion sensitivity or aspect recognition could explain pilots' ability to judge an adversary's change of heading. Keywords include: visual flying skills; visual training; visual assessment; visual simulation; vision; motion perception; eye-limb coordination; stereoscopic depth perception; and visual contrast sensitivity.