The recent use of strobe lights in aviation suggests the possibility of using temporal patterns of short duration flashes as information-carrying signals. Under night flight conditions, two-flash thresholds were obtained using a two-interval, temporal forced-choice technique with foveally fixated circular targets varying in luminance and area. For all subjects the results replicated a previous finding that two-flash thresholds are a negatively accelerated function of flash luminance, but the function was shown to be dependent on area, a greater threshold change occurring at smaller areas. Two-flash thresholds were also found to be a decreasing function of stimulus area, with the greatest threshold change occurring at low luminances.
Signal lights are presented to an observer as flashes with finite duration; thus, the effect of flash duration on the apparent brightness of the signa...
As a consequence of the high speeds of modern aircraft, pilots must respond quickly to signal lights from the ground or other aircraft during night fl...
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving a Bureau of Transportation
Statistics (BTS)/National Transportation Library (NTL)
Web-based service.
Thank you for visiting.
You are about to access a non-government link outside of
the U.S. Department of Transportation's National
Transportation Library.
Please note: While links to Web sites outside of DOT are
offered for your convenience, when you exit DOT Web sites,
Federal privacy policy and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation
Act (accessibility requirements) no longer apply. In
addition, DOT does not attest to the accuracy, relevance,
timeliness or completeness of information provided by linked
sites. Linking to a Web site does not constitute an
endorsement by DOT of the sponsors of the site or the
products presented on the site. For more information, please
view DOT's Web site linking policy.
To get back to the page you were previously viewing, click
your Cancel button.
United States Department of Transportation
[PDF-427.56 KB]
