Target Cueing in Augmented Reality: A Comparison of Head Mounted with Hand-Held Displays

Abstract

We conducted a study to examine the effects of target cueing and conformality with a hand-held or head-mounted display to determine their effects on visual search tasks requiring focused and divided attention. Eleven military subjects were asked to detect, identify, and give azimuth information for targets hidden in terrain presented in a simulated far domain environment while performing a monitoring task in the near domain using either a helmet-mounted display or hand-held 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. This effect was mediated by the display used, such that attentional tunneling was reduced when subjects were using the hand-held display.