Up/Down in (Im)possible Flight Attitude Indicators - Some Effects of Colour, Shape and Pattern -

Abstract

Based upon general complaints from pilots, as well as suspicions that misinterpretations of the flight attitude indicator(FAI) had contributed to some crashes, some research was initiated. The first studies concerned minor revisions of the layout of the current electromechanical spherical FAI. The results indicated that many pilots wanted some improvements of the FAI and that the present colour combination (black and white) could not be considered optimal for the Swedish pilot population. The studies were continued with more hypothetical constructs, aiming at finding possible coding principles for future computer-generated flight attitude information. The basic idea was to try to find some visual coding dimension(s) that would trigger spontaneous interpretations of the spatial up/down dimension. In a series of experiments a number of combinations of colours, shapes and patterns were tested on both volontary civilian subjects and military pilots. It was found that most of the tested people expressed very strong spatial associations to some of the combinations, but also that the agreement between individuals sometimes was practically negligible. Colour and shape tended to elicit the strongest responses, with the tested patterns acting more as minor moderators. Unfortunately, however, the large individual differences do not indicate that the design of a single “optimal” combination would be easy.