Brown Bag: Sensory supplementation through 3-dimensional "audiotactile" displays

Sensory supplementation through 3-dimensional "audiotactile" displays.

Presenter: J. Christopher Brill, Ph.D., Air Force Research Laboratory

Abstract

Spatial disorientation (SD) is one of the leading causes of aviation mishaps, with a fatality rate of nearly 100%.  The primary contributing factor to SD for rotary wing aircraft (i.e., helicopters) is operating in a degraded visual environment (DVE), such as brownout conditions.  Although sensors are improving for "seeing" through the dust, SD from loss of situation awareness remains a significant issue.  As a stopgap measure, Dr. Brill and his collaborators at the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory have been investigating the effectiveness of sensory supplementation through 3-dimensional "audiotactile" displays.  Their data suggest presenting spatial cues redundantly through 3-D audio and vibrotaction may be particularly potent means for presenting information to pilots operating in a DVE.  Moreover, their investigations are beginning to focus on trust of multi-sensory displays for situations in which you can't trust your own senses.

Bio

Dr. J. Christopher Brill earned a Ph.D. in Applied Experimental and Human Factors Psychology from the University of Central Florida in 2007.  He served as a faculty member for Michigan Tech and Old Dominion University before joining the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) as a senior research psychologist in 2016, where he currently serves as the Lead for the Human Insight and Trust (HIT) Team and manager of AFRL’s human-machine trust research program.  Dr. Brill has 17 years of experience with human factors design with specialties in multimodal displays and human performance assessment.  He seeks to improve human performance and trust calibration through human-centered design.  He previously worked for the U.S. Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory and has designed displays for projects funded by DARPA, the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory (USAARL), AFRL, and private industry.  He currently collaborates with USAARL on research supporting their Degraded Visual Environment mitigation program for rotary wing aircraft.  Dr. Brill has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, proceedings papers, and book chapters, and he has given numerous invited talks domestically and internationally.  He previously served as an expert on a NATO Human Factors and Medicine Panel on tactile displays in military environments, and he currently advises the U.S. Army-led Future Vertical Lift (FLV) program on matters of human-machine teaming and trust-in-automation.  He remains an active member of the human factors professional community and has served in numerous leadership positions for the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), where he presently coordinates and hosts their world-wide webinar series.