The Effect of Immersive Displays on Situation Awareness in Virtual Environments for Aerial Firefighting Air Attack Supervisor Training

Situation Awareness (SA) is an essential skill in Air Attack Supervision (AAS) for aerial based wildfire firefighting. The display types used for Virtual Reality Training Systems (VRTS) afford different visual SA depending on the Field of View (FoV) as well as the sense of presence users can obtain in the virtual environment. We conducted a study with 36 participants to evaluate SA acquisition in three display types: a high-definition TV (HDTV), an Oculus Rift Head-Mounted Display (HMD) and a 270° cylindrical simulation projection display called the SimPit. We found a significant difference between the HMD and the HDTV, as well as with the SimPit and the HDTV for the three levels of SA.

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