Human performance issues in automatic target recognition and situation awareness displays

Under the performance levels currently achievable for automated target-recognition (ATR) systems, the human operator plays an essential role in screening ATR detections and rejecting false alarms. A critical advantage of human operators over ATR systems is their ability to make use of situation awareness in identifying targets. ALPHATECH proposes a research program to identify the critical parameters that influence the effectiveness of a human working with an automated system to maintain situation awareness in order to detect, identify, and acquire targets. We will build on the results of an investigation already underway at ALPHATECH, sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory Human Research and Engineering Directorate, on the design of effective displays for aided target-recognition systems. This research concentrates on human-ATR performance in context-free target-recognition decisions. The completed work will provide a starting point for the proposed new effort, which will introduce the critical factors of context and situation awareness into the target-recognition decision. In Phase I we will develop hypotheses, conduct pilot experiments using ALPHATECH's Macintosh-based ATR-Interface Testbed, and prepare an Experiment Plan for Phase II based n the results of the pilot experiments.