An Examination of Head-Mounted Displays and Task Complexity in an Airborne Command and Control Simulation Environment

Technology-induced increases in information availability have elevated the issue of display cluttering in application domains in which display space is limited. To remediate this problem, evaluations of potential display technologies should be conducted. This paper discusses the examination of head-mounted displays (HMDs) in a simulated airborne command and control environment. Twelve participants engaged in tasks in which they were required to retrieve information from one of several display technologies. This information was available via two HMDs, on paper, and on the primary display. Further, as in previous work, the task complexity was also manipulated. The results indicated that the HMDs tested, in general, did not produce a performance benefit over the other methods of information retrieval. However, the HMDs.did not show a decrement in performance as previous studies have shown. Potential uses of HMDs.and other display technologies are discussed.