Change Detection in Head-Up Displays (HUDs) and Twilight Environments

Abstract: In the current research, we evaluated the influence of Head-Up Display (HUD) luminance configurations on change detection in mixed luminance environments (i.e., twilight conditions - sunrises and sunsets). Such environments provide a particular challenge for determining the appropriate HUD luminance. Using the flicker paradigm, participants viewed an image of a HUD overlaid on a twilight environment and had to detect changes that could occur on the HUD display or in the environment. The HUD luminance was configured in one of three ways: bright, dim, and segmented (bright above the midline, dim below – matching the entire twilight environment). Although segmented HUDs seem to intuitively provide a compromise in twilight conditions, we found that this was not the case – detection performance was overall lower with segmented HUDs than with uniform HUDs. We discuss how the current results relate to spatial as well as object-based attention orienting when HUDs are used. Additionally, we provide potential reasons for the inferiority of segmented HUDs, including a reduced ability to separate information displayed on the HUD and in the environment from one another when scanning the display.

Keywords: attention, change detection, interface design, heads, up, display, display luminance

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003837

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