Effects of vestibular and visual motion perception on task performance.

Abstract

The effects of foveal and peripheral visual, as well as vestibular, cues on the performance and control behaviour of subjects in two different roll control tasks were studied in a moving base flight simulator with low noise motion characteristics. Two different roll control tasks were used, one being a following task (or compensatory tracking task) where a displayed random signal was to be tracked, the other being a disturbance task in which a random signal perturbed the controlled system and the roll angle was to be kept at zero. Consistent improvement in controller performance was found after adding visual peripheral or vestibular (motion) cues to the basic configuration consisting of a central CRT display. Control behaviour, as expressed by controller transfer functions was also markedly influenced by the addition of these extra motion cues, the changes in control behaviour being dependent on the type of control task. Some possible causes for this dependence are discussed.