Change Blindness and Its Implications for Complex Monitoring and Control Systems Design and Operator Training

Durlach, P. 2004. Change blindness and its implications for complex monitoring and control systems design and operator training. Hum.-Comput. Interact. 19, 4 (Dec. 2004), 423-451. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327051hci1904_10

Summary:

Durlach from The Army Research Institute discussed various aspects of change blindness's affects on important monitoring systems, such as airport traffic control.

One factor mentioned in the study is that the longer between screen updates (e.g., distractions), the more likely change blindness occurs. If the screen updates are almost non-existent, the changes are detected in 1-2 flashes. If the blank screens are ~80 ms, the detections are seen in about 17 alterations.

Other factors that affect change blindness include: distractions, discriminability (red vs. burgandy, red vs. white), categorization (tank vs. truck), biased serial search (rescanning same areas), amount of information, external attention capture, prior learning from a task (repeated or predictable change), meaningfulness of the change, and the user's expertise in the change area.

To help eliminate change blindness, Durlach proposes to reduce screen clutter, make any items easily discriminable, and train users on the systems.


Discussion:

There's no silver bullet to combat change blindness and inattentional blindness, and Durlach recognizes this. Her suggestions make sense, and she has a great list of pros and cons to accompany them. As tasks become more complex, there's always a sacrifice with making software that can handle the complexity while minimizing potential user errors.