Human Research and Engineering Directorate Research Areas

Auditory and Visual Motion Modeling and Simulation

Advisor: Mark A. Ericson (mark.a.ericson@us.army.mil   410.278.4089)
Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD

Key words: auditory, visual, motion, modeling, simulation, spatial, navigation, search, symbology

The Army Research Laboratory is conducting extensive research studies in how soldiers perceive and respond to moving visual objects and sound sources while performing their mission in various environments and in stressful, high workload situations. Two unique, world-class facilities have been developed to study how humans use auditory motion cues and combined auditory and visual display information. The environment for auditory research (EAR) contains a 22 meter long indoor and 110 meter long outdoor loudspeaker arrays for displaying real and simulated moving sound sources. Research areas in the EAR facility include judgments of approaching and receding sounds, acoustic Tau, collision probability, path trajectories, and object acceleration and deceleration. The tactical environmental simulation facility (TESF) affords multi-sensory immersion into virtual battlefield environments ranging from benign to hostile. It contains an omni-directional treadmill, a four wall visual projection display (CAVE), and several loudspeaker arrays located at various heights and distances from the treadmill. Battlefield situations can be realistically simulated, without harming the soldier, to
quantify how well humans process auditory and visual information at various workload levels and in various environmental conditions. Research areas include aurally guided visual search, land navigation, search and rescue operations, and the development of integrated spatial auditory and visual symbology to optimize human performance.