J Intell Manuf (2011) 22:29–41 DOI 10.1007/s10845-009-0280-z The effects of target location and target distinction on visual search in a depth display George Reis · Yan Liu · Paul Havig · Eric Heft Received: 14 November 2008 / Accepted: 28 April 2009 / Published online: 7 July 2009 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract Research of human-centered computing systems in industry should not avoid advances in visual display tech- nology for safety, warning, and interaction. Novel 3D dis- plays that present information in real depth offer potential benefits. Previous research has studied depth in visual search but depth was mostly not realized by real physical separation. Many areas of Human Factors could be augmented with the study and evaluation for operation of novel 3D displays. Such a study was presented to better understand the effects of real physical depth in association with depth redundantly coded with another feature (an additional mark on a target) dis- tinguishing it from distracters and target location on visual search in a depth display. Target location was studied as the row or column in the visual field of view the target was posi- tioned and also in terms of eccentricity outwardly from the center of the display. In general, depth was found to be of benefit when redundantly coded with another attribute for guiding attention. Targets were not found as fast when the target’s location was further from the center fixation point, and interactions between target distinction (depth, mark, or G. Reis (B ) · P. Havig · E. Heft 711 HPW/RHCV/Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, 2255 H Street, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH 45433-7022, USA e-mail: George.Reis@wpafb.af.mil P. Havig e-mail: Paul.Havig@wpafb.af.mil E. Heft e-mail: Eric.Heft@wpafb.af.mil Y. Liu Department of Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering, Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Dayton, OH 45435, USA e-mail: Yan.Liu@wright.edu depth + mark) and target location provide implications for designers. Keywords Depth · Visual search · Eccentricity · Multi-layered display · Saliency · Redundant coding Introduction Research of human-centered computing systems in industry should not avoid advances in visual display technology for safety, warning, and interaction. In particular, novel displays that present information in depth or true three dimensional (3D) representations, have made tremendous advances and offer potential benefits. These novel displays are spearheaded in gaming and entertainment. For example, makers of slot machines have incorporated such technology (Company Profile 2009) and 3D TV is not far behind (Captain 2009; Reardon 2009). 3D technologies are also sought after by the medical community (Medical Holograms Give Doctors Cutting-Edge View 2009) and could be applied to military command and control (C2) and businesses. For operators in control rooms or process monitoring positions, alerting mechanisms or mechanisms for providing situation aware- ness (SA), through depth, could prevent the loss of equip- ment, identify abnormal processes, or could even as drastically, save lives. One such display technology is that of the Multi- Layered TM Display (PureDepth 2009), where one LCD screen is placed in front of another, and the frontal screen is transparent such that information can be seen on the frontal screen and through this information one is able to see infor- mation on the back screen. We will refer to this display as the depth display. In this paper, we discuss research performed upon the depth display and this study serves as one block in 123