Searching for possible threat items to safe air travel: Human error and training

Abstract

An eye-tracking experiment is reported which investigates the underlying factors that affect training in the visual search of air passenger luggage for possible threat items so as to reduce errors and improve safe air travel. In this study, naive observers learned to search for terrorist threat items of guns, knives and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in airport passengers' X-ray luggage images. During training, each participant viewed the same number of learning trials of guns, knives or IEDs. Transfer performance was measured in a same search task in which each participant was more familiar with the visual appearance of half of the test targets. Detection performance and eye movement data both showed improvement in the efficiency of search and recognition with practice, while the skills were stimulus-specific so that performance was degraded when novel targets were introduced. Perceptual learning and human errors of the implications for screener training are discussed. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.