How Information Access, Information Volume of Head-Up Display and Work Experience Affect Pilots' MentalWorkload During Flight: An EEG Study

Since the real flight environment for pilots is constantly changing, and existing studies of head-up display (HUD) on flight are often static, the experiment was conducted to simulate the dynamics of flight through Flightgear software to closely match the mental load of pilots in real conditions. To explore the effect of HUD on the flight process in a simulated flight environment, a three-factor experiment was conducted to investigate the change in the pilot'smental workload during flight including two information access (Display1 (integrated HUD and gauge display) vs. Dislpay2 (single gauge display)), two tasks (climb task vs. level flying task) and four visits (Visit2 vs. Visit 3 vs. Visit 4 vs. Visit 5). The information volume was achieved by performing different flight tasks and the work experience is represented by the number of times of flying (visit). From the analysis of NASA-TLX scale, flight performance and EEG data of pilots, it was found that as the number of executions increased, the working memory gradually increased but themental workload gradually decreased. In addition, we also found that the HUD could assist pilots in cognition and help reduce the workload during flight, and the assistance was most effective when the HUD presented sufficient information.