Investigating the Relationship between Visual Spatial Abilities and Robot Operation during Direct Line of Sight and Teleoperation

Objective: To determine how scores on standard spatial measures correlate with the ability to operate a robot under different teleoperation conditions. Background: Past work has demonstrated that there is a relationship between visual spatial ability and teleoperation performance. Method: In this experiment participants completed a spatial visualization (VZ-2) and spatial relation (S-2) measure, and teleoperated a robot through both low and high difficulty courses under direct line of sight (DLS) and teleoperation (TO) conditions. Performance was determined by course completion time and the total number of collisions made during navigation. Results and Conclusion: Aggregate visual spatial ability was inversely correlated with operator performance under each of the experimental conditions. Analyzed independently, only spatial relations ability correlated with TO performance, while both measures correlated with DLS operation. Application: Better understanding of the relationship between spatial abilities and teleoperation performance can assist in the selection and training of future operators, as well as the design of superior interfaces.

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