Cybernetics of tunnel-in-the-sky displays. II. Curved trajectories

A theoretical information-centered analysis has been conducted to study the effectiveness of spatial information conveyed by a generic tunnel-in-the-sky display showing curved tunnel trajectories. This analysis revealed significant differences in the optical information as compared to the situation for straight tunnel trajectories, investigated in Part I. The task of following a curved rather than a straight trajectory is markedly more difficult because: 1) the usefulness of many of the cues available in straight tunnels decreases significantly; and 2) the presence of presentation biases leads to a biased pilot perception of the aircraft state with respect to the trajectory. The paper describes the information-centered approach in detail and shows that the experimental results provide substantial evidence for the pre-experimental hypotheses following the analysis