When Beauty is Only Skin Deep: 3-D Realistic Icons are Harder to Identify than Conventional 2-D Military Symbols

Abstract

Conventional 2-D tactical displays depict military objects (platforms) using non-realistic symbols. A new generation of 3-D tactical displays is being developed that depict platforms using miniature realistic icons of ships and planes. These icons are very compelling, but do they translate into performance benefits for users? In four experiments we measured identification and classification performance for a set of common military platforms displayed as either 3-D icons, 2-D icons, or conventional 2-D symbols (from Mil. Std 2525B). 3-D icons were identified consistently slower and less accurately than 2-D symbols, and no better than computationally simpler 2-D icons. Icons are poor because they put the work of discriminating between subtly different real-world platforms onto the user. Symbols, on the other hand, can be engineered to have arbitrarily high discriminability for similar-looking real-world platforms. Users may appreciate, and clamor for, a familiar faithfully realistic representation of the world on their display, but they may be much better off operating on a pre-processed discriminable, if unrealistic, version of it.

Naïve Realism: Folk Fallacies in the Design and Use of Visual Displays

“…The pattern of intuition for realism, and superior performance for simplification, mirrors that previously observed for realistic icons and caricatures of Navy vessels and aircraft (Smallman, St. John, Oonk, & Cowen, 2000;Smallman et al, 2001) and forecasting with meteorological displays (Hegarty et al, 2009). An older literature on the factors determining general aesthetic appeal found complexity to be a strong driver of preference (Berlyne, 1970).…”

Effects of Geometry, Landmarks and Orientation Strategies in the ‘Drop-Off’ Orientation Task

“…With less congruent representations, e.g., a photograph or actual real-world scene where colours and shapes will usually differ between the scene and the map (and where the map is likely to be smaller-scale and hence subject to greater cartographic generalisation), this is likely to be a greater challenge, although abstraction of the 2D geometry will also be more difficult due to the presence of street furniture, vegetation, cars and other objects. For this and other obvious reasons, increasing congruence by adding 3D realistic landmark representations to the map would not necessarily be the best solution: as decades of cartographic research suggest, along with more recent studies [35], a symbol merely representing the category of object (e.g., church or pub) may be recognised more quickly than an attempt at a photorealistic image of it. In any case, since appearances of realworld objects often change, it would probably be unrealistic to suggest that a mapping agency collect and maintain photorealistic images of the landmarks found on thousands of street corners.…”

Promoting Rapid Situation Awareness in Tactical Displays: The Role of 3-D Perspective Views and Realistic Symbols

“…3-D displays oflen use realistic icons to show individual ships and planes (see Fig 1) whereas 2-D displays use conventional, more abstract, symbols. We have found 3-D icons slower to identify than comparable 2-D symbols when shown in isolation (Smallman et al, 2000). Could they really promote faster SA?…”