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Presentation
Faster Than Light: Preliminary Review of a Complex GameBased Testbed
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2016 Annual Meeting (2016)
  • Anthony L. Baker, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
  • Joseph R. Keebler, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
  • Elizabeth L. Blickensderfer, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Abstract
Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products allow researchers to conduct studies using readily accessible systems in order to save time, effort, and/or money that would otherwise be spent designing a custom product. In this article, we discuss the potential of a low-cost and commercially available video game, FTL: Faster Than Light, to be used as a testbed for research into complex or high-workload situations. In this preliminary review, we prototype a performance assessment tool for FTL, which we call FTL Score, and evaluate its ability to distinguish performances between a pilot sample of three participants. The results of this exploratory study showed that our measurement methods were able to distinguish between the performance of two novices and an expert. This suggests that a larger follow-up study is warranted, and lends some support to the hypothesis that FTL can be used as an easy-to-deploy and low-cost testbed for research into high-workload performance. 
Keywords
  • video games,
  • high-workload performance
Disciplines
Publication Date
2016
Location
Washington, D.C.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/1541931213601417
Citation Information
Anthony L. Baker, Joseph R. Keebler and Elizabeth L. Blickensderfer. "Faster Than Light: Preliminary Review of a Complex GameBased Testbed" Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2016 Annual Meeting (2016)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/joseph_r_keebler/91/