In this study, we investigated the possibility to evaluate the impact of different avionic technologies on the mental workload of helicopter's pilots by measuring their brain activity with the EEG during a series of simulated missions carried out at AgustaWestland facilities in Yeovil (UK). The tested avionic technologies were: i) Head-Up Display (HUD); ii) Head-Mounted Display (HMD); iii) Full Conformal symbology (FC); iv) Flight Guidance (FG) symbology; v) Synthetic Vision System (SVS); and vi) Radar Obstacles (RO) detection system. It has been already demonstrated that in cognitive tasks, when the cerebral workload increases the EEG power spectral density (PSD) in theta band over frontal areas increases, and the EEG PSD in alpha band decreases over parietal areas. A mental workload index (MWL) has been here defined as the ratio between the frontal theta and parietal alpha EEG PSD values. Such index has been used for testing and comparing the different avionic technologies. Results suggested that the HUD provided a significant (p<;.05) workload reduction across all the flight scenarios with respect to the other technologies. In addition, the simultaneous use of FC and FG technologies (FC+FG) produced a significant decrement of the workload (p<;.01) with respect to the use of only the FC. Moreover, the use of the SVS technology provided on Head Down Display (HDD) with the simultaneous use of FC+FG and the RO seemed to produce a lower cerebral workload when compared with the use of only the FC. Interestingly, the workload estimation by means of subjective measures, provided by pilots through a NASA-TLX questionnaire, did not provide any significant differences among the different flight scenarios. These results suggested that the proposed MWL cognitive neurometrics could be used as a reliable measure of the user's mental workload, being a valid indicator for the comparison and the test of different avionic technologies.

The aim of this work was to analyze the possibility to apply a neuroelectrical cognitive metrics for the evaluation of the training level of subjects during the learning of a task employed by Air Traffic Controllers (ATCos). In particular, the Electroencephalogram (EEG), the Electrocardiogram (ECG) and the Electrooculogram (EOG) signals were gathered from a group of students during the execution of an Air Traffic Management (ATM) task, proposed at three different levels of difficulty. The neuroelectrical results were compared with the subjective perception of the task difficulty obtained by the NASA-TLX questionnaires. From these analyses, we suggest that the integration of information derived from the power spectral density (PSD) of the EEG signals, the heart rate (HR) and the eye-blink rate (EBR) return important quantitative information about the training level of the subjects. In particular, by focusing the analysis on the direct and inverse correlation of the frontal PSD theta (4-7 (Hz)) and HR, and of the parietal PSD alpha (10-12 (Hz)) and EBR, respectively, with the degree of mental and emotive engagement, it is possible to obtain useful information about the training improvement across the training sessions.

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This chapter presents and discusses an Expert Usability Evaluation for a flight deck touch screen prototype, carried out in one European co-funded project called ALICIA (www.alicia-project.eu). Through the presentation of this evaluation activity and its impact on the rest of design process, this chapter will address some methodological issues on usability in complex domains: 1) The specific context in which the technology is introduced has to be well known by the designers as it provides crucial constraints to be taken into account; 2) Evaluating complex safety critical systems entails the use of a holistic multidisciplinary approach and an iterative design process that involve, in different phases, several type of experts (engineers, human factors, usability experts, end users and stakeholders); and 3) The level of maturity of the technology and the evaluation objectives contribute to the definition of the evaluation methods to be used.

Abstract. iDTV is a promising platform for education, since it can reach a large number of people and provide computing and communication interactivity. However, a number of key issues have yet to be faced, in a variety of fields, such as pedagogy, digital signal processing, and Human-Computer Interaction. Starting from pedagogical principles rooted in the constructionism theory, the ELU IST project presents a t-learning framework where learners are involved in compelling educational games through iDTV and engaged in their actual construction as well.Keywords: iDTV, constructionism, t-learning, MHP, gaming. T-Learning: Potential and ChallengesAnalogical TV is a communication medium able to reach daily a huge part of the people. However, specific use of TV for educational purposes has not been very effective yet. We can explain this, from a pedagogical point of view, by considering two major drawbacks. First: the typical educational approach for assume a world of independent individuals who "acquire" knowledge according to universal principles, tempered only by general categorizations based on age and cultural interests. Second: the co-construction of knowledge in the learning process is relegated to pre-established paths that follow an abstraction-instantiation loop. Most of teaching is done through abstraction. The students are completely excluded from the possibility to produce institutionalised educational assets, even when the theory goes that proper understanding is achieved only by co-construction of knowledge [1].In the recent years, digital TV has introduced significant novelties in the TV world. It provides bandwidth for much more channels than analogue TV and supports enduser interactivity with computer based applications that are broadcast together with the audio-visual stream. These applications allow the viewer to select content, access a variety of services (ranging from interactive advertising to healthcare, from eGovernment to e-Banking, from games to weather forecasts) and send feedback through an Internet-based return channel.