Presentation
Multimodal Physiological and Behavioral Correlates of Situation Awareness in Virtual Reality Flight Navigation
SessionThursday Poster Session
DescriptionSituation awareness (SA) is critical for aviation performance yet remains difficult to assess without interrupting task behavior. Prior work has examined physiological correlates of SA, but findings remain mixed and vary in how SA outcomes are operationalized. This study examined whether physiological and behavioral features collected during immersive virtual reality (VR) were associated with Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) accuracy, SAGAT response time (RT), and navigation efficiency. A total of 118 Naval Aviation trainees completed Assessing Spatial Abilities in Naval Aviation (ASANA), a VR task with embedded SAGAT probes and multimodal data collection. Features were extracted from the 30 seconds preceding SAGAT probes and included galvanic skin response, heart rate variability (HRV), pupillometry, gaze behavior, and head tracking. Correlations showed larger skin conductance response amplitudes were related to lower SAGAT accuracy, while higher root mean square of successive differences, an HRV metric, was related to slower SAGAT RT. Gaze and pupillometry features were associated with SAGAT outcomes and navigation efficiency, whereas head-tracking metrics showed weaker navigation relationships and no association with SAGAT outcomes. These findings support a multimodal interpretation of SA in immersive flight navigation and provide a foundation for future models characterizing SA with physiological and behavioral measures.
Event Type
Poster
TimeThursday, October 22nd5:30pm - 6:30pm PDT
Location
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