An Electronic System for Measuring Human Information Retrieval in Bisensory Configuration

Facilities are being developed for the Army to measure radar system responses -where "system" is taken in its largest sense to include the operator. The facilities consist of two complementary laboratories, one to video-record radar set responses to a variety of field target environments and the other to play back, with replication capability, the video to radar sets, recreating events for operator response measurements. Not only is the radar video-recorded, but all the causal environmental factors are instrumented and recorded in pulse code. Later, during playback, these varying magnitudes are gated to storage by operator responses, and together with response times constitute a statistical gathering of system input/output -cause and effect -functions. They are analyzed to yield meaningful statistical averages. The initial equipment type under study is the AN/TPS-33, which presents an A-scope target video and a noncoherent, doppler-dependent audio to operator-gated video. Since the operator interprets the targets by A-scope observation and audio monitor, measurement of his performance is within the whole class of measurements on eye and ear information retrieval. Accordingly, the laboratories are being developed with a flexibility amenable to investigation of information retrieval formats of other audio-visual information display systems.