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The FAA Aviation Security Research and Development Division (AAR-500) at
the William J. Hughes Technical Center, Atlantic City International
Airport will be awarding research grants in the areas of the psychology
of attention and object recognition. The purpose of this effort is to
support long-term research designed to enhance our understanding of the
psychological human-factors processes relevant to the tasks conducted at
the airport security checkpoint. The need for a long-term research
program is underscored by the understanding that important scientific
breakthroughs often come about as a result of unconstrained exploration
of a general theoretical issue or problem. With this in mind, AAR-500 is
committed to the support of long-term research relevant to the task of
maintaining airport security.

There are many different activities at an airport security checkpoint
that require the execution of complex procedures. Of these activities,
the performance of the X-ray operator is one of the most difficult to
perform as well as one of the most important for maintaining civil
aviation security. The X-ray operator is charged with the responsibility
to ensure that passenger carry-on baggage does not contain any deadly or
dangerous threat items (real or perceived) that might endanger the
safety of passengers and equipment in the airplane and airport terminal.
This requires the mastery of a difficult detection task in which the
X-ray operator must view two-dimensional or three-dimensional X-ray
images of passenger bags and search for guns, knives, and explosives.
There are several complex cognitive operations involved in this search
process. In addition, improving the performance levels for the detection
of these threats is a high priority for the FAA. For these reasons, this
initial long-term research effort will focus on relevant theoretical
issues that directly pertain to the tasks of the airport security X-ray
operator.

This effort will develop a long-term collaboration with academic
scientists whose research efforts conform to the theoretical issues
outlined below. These collaborative efforts will take the form of FAA
research grants: funding investigators who have the theoretical
background, proven research experience, and relevant research interests
to explore theoretical issues that are important to aviation security.

# Issues: Aviation Security Research Interests

The security X-ray operator must perform a complex visual search task on
as many as 200 - 300 (maximum) passenger bags per 20-minute shift. The
operator can have as little as 3 seconds to examine the X-ray image of a
bag before that bag has exited the X-ray chamber. This search task
includes several target categories whose full member set is not known
(i.e., guns, knives, and explosives). Threats that have never been seen
before can serve as potential targets. The task can become tedious at
times, straining the X-ray operator's vigilance. Furthermore, bags
contain various amounts of distracters. A highly cluttered bag can
contain enough distracting material such as to make the search task
nearly impossible. The result is a visual search task requiring many
attentional resources and relying on many object-recognition processes.
For these reasons, this grant announcement is focused on investigational
efforts related to human attention and object-recognition processes.

[Human Attention]{.underline}. The study of human attention has
traditionally focused on the perception-based processes of orienting to
sensory stimuli, target detection, and alertness. In addition, the study
of attentional control processes has examined action monitoring, error
monitoring, task awareness, and response conflict resolutions. Within
these frameworks, researchers have examined such diverse phenomena as
vigilance, fatigue effects, visual selective attention, sustained and
focused attention, visual search, pre-attention and pop-out effects,
pattern recognition, distractibility, and awareness.

[Object Recognition]{.underline}. The study of object recognition has
examined the cognitive processes by which humans identify common
objects. This endeavor combines the efforts of many research domains,
including language, attention, and perception. In the study of
object-recognition, researchers have focused on topics such as item
familiarity, item similarity and distinctiveness, pop-out effects,
attentional factors, figure-ground distinctions, the effects of clutter,
the effects of degraded stimuli (i.e., identification of partially
visible objects), feature analysis, 3D vs. 2D processing, boundary
recognition, pattern recognition, expert performance in X-ray
interpretation, expert/novice differences, and global vs. local
processing distinctions.

Clearly, both the attention and object recognition research domains deal
with theoretical topics that have direct implications for the cognitive
processes engaged during a security threat search conducted on X-ray
images. The objective of this research initiative is to identify
academic researchers currently engaged in the types of research listed
in the preceding paragraphs, and to support these research programs by
awarding funds through research grants. Examples of the types of
research questions that could be relevant to understanding the security
checkpoint X-ray operator include (but are not limited to):

-   What is the role of vigilance in shape perception and in target
    detection?

-   What are the effects of fatigue on object recognition and on target
    search?

-   What is the role of attention on object recognition?

-   What are the effects of knowledge of the targets on object
    recognition?

-   If the targets are known, is there any kind of inhibition towards
    new examples of the target category? Is there facilitation towards
    new examples?

-   What are the effects of knowledge of distracters?

-   Does detection ability for targets increase with greater familiarity
    of the distracters?

-   What are the differences between target-similar (e.g., a clock),
    target-dissimilar (e.g., a shoe), and task-irrelevant (e.g., a
    talking passenger) distracters on target detection?

-   What role do pop-out effects play during X-ray threat detection?

-   What are the effects of expectations on target detection?

-   What are the effects of positive and negative feedback on target
    detection? Are there short-term and long-term effects?

-   Does awareness of errors affect future performance?

-   Does awareness of past performance affect future performance?

These are just a few examples of possible research studies that might be
of interest to aviation security and could be supported under this
research initiative.

# Grant Application Procedure

The mechanism for the application process is the FAA's Grants For
Aviation Research Program Solicitation 97.2. This grant application can
be found at the website:

<http://www.tc.faa.gov/contracts/grants/solicitation.html>

Although Program Solicitation No 97.2 typically serves as an open
solicitation, for the purposes of this research initiative, the grant
application procedure will be additionally constrained in the following
ways:

-   The research topics should be limited to the areas of attention
    and/or object recognition as outlined above.

-   There will be a technical review process.

-   Only research that has clear theoretical implications for the tasks
    performed by aviation security screeners will be considered.

-   The deadline for grant applications is February 15, 2001.
    Applications received after that deadline will not be considered.

Grant applicants are expected to demonstrate knowledge and expertise
concerning past research relevant to the proposed experiments. Each
grant application will be evaluated for intrinsic value, relevance,
technical soundness, qualifications, and available resources necessary
to conduct the study. The goal is to fund 1 to 3 one-year grants that
will advance the objectives of aviation security research and
development in the field of human factors. It is anticipated that grant
funding decisions will be made by April 1, 2001. **Funding amount**: We
intend to allocate at least \$300,000 to fund 1 to 3 grants.

A non-binding, not required email letter of intent to
josh.rubinstein@tc.faa.gov, by December 31, would be greatly
appreciated.

For grant-administration questions, please contact:

Barbara Fuller, Grants Officer

\(609\) 485-4919

barbara.fuller@tc.faa.gov

For technical questions related to the research plan, please contact:

Dr. Joshua Rubinstein, FAA Principle Investigator

\(609\) 485-4463

josh.rubinstein@tc.faa.gov