Psychiatry and Psychology Commons^™

Supporting Pilots In Recovering Trajectories With Tunnel-In-The-Sky Displays, Ernst J.G. Verschragen, Max Mulder, M.M. (René) Van Paassen

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

Tunnel-in-the-sky displays have shown great potential for reducing pilot workload and navigation error. Although it is a well-evaluated concept, only little research has been conducted on situations in which the pilot has (deliberately or not) flown outside of the tunnel. This paper describes the experimental evaluation of various alternatives to support pilots in recapturing their nominal trajectory. The concepts studied include the use of guiding arrows, path deviation indicators, a symbol representing the tunnel and a “return tunnel”. Results from a pilot-in-the-loop experiment indicate that a “return tunnel” performed best on situation awareness and workload aspects and that most pilots …

Attentional Tunneling And Task Management, Christopher D. Wickens

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

This paper discusses attentional tunneling as one cause of breakdowns in task management. The phenomenon is defined, and empirical evidence is then reviewed to show the conditions in which the phenomenon is created by head up display location, compelling 3D displays, fault management, and automation induced complacency. Statistical and methodological issues are reviewed regarding the generalization of the phenomenon in the laboratory to real world mishaps

A Summary Of Unmanned Aircraft Accident/Incident Data: Human Factors Implications, Kevin W. Williams Ph.D.

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

A review and analysis of unmanned aircraft (UA) accident data was conducted to identify important human factors issues related to their use. UA accident data were collected from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. The percentage of involvement of human factors issues varied across aircraft from 21% to 68%. For most of the aircraft systems, electromechanical failure was more of a causal factor than human error. One critical finding from an analysis of the data is that each of the fielded systems is very different, leading to different kinds of accidents and different human factors issues. A second finding …

Pilot Dependence On Imperfect Diagnostic Automation In Simulated Uav Flights: An Attentional Visual Scanning Analysis., Christopher Wickens, Stephen Dixon, Juliana Goh, Ben Hammer

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

An unmanned air vehicle (UAV) simulation was designed to reveal the effects of imperfectly reliable diagnostic automation – a monitor of system health parameters – on pilot attention, as the latter was assessed via visual scanning. Four groups of participants flew a series of legs under different automation conditions: a baseline (no automation) control, and automation which was either 100% reliable, 60% reliable with a low-threshold bias to produce false alerts, and 60% reliable with a high threshold to produce misses. A high workload mission completion task and ground surveillance task were simultaneously imposed. Consistent with the reliance-compliance model of …

Why’D They Do That? Analyzing Pilot Mindset In Accidents And Incidents, Ed Wischmeyer Ph.D.

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

In teaching a series of classes that analyzed “classical” airline accidents, it was observed that human behavior in such accidents was often understood better when the “mindset” of the protagonists was studied explicitly, rather than implicitly, and that the time element was also useful in such analyses. Often pilots took actions not explainable by traditional error models, and not predictable from known influences. These observations started a series of iterations that eventually converged on the PEEMBO model (Predispositions, Environment, Events, Mindset and mental condition, Behaviors, and missed Opportunities.) The PEEMBO model now appears mature enough for routine use in accident …

A Real-Time Automated Transcription Tool For Tactical Communications Assessment, David T. Williamson, Lt Mathew D. Purtee

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

This paper describes the development of a real-time automated transcription tool for assessing tactical communications in a DIS environment. Java-based tools were developed to capture simulated radio communications data from tactical training exercises conducted at the Warfighter Training Research Division of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Human Effectiveness Directorate. A representative set of audio data was handtranscribed and used as training material for a class-based statistical language model using a commercially available speech recognition system. The language model was designed to allow run-time input of callsign data to provide increased flexibility. The resulting system is a real-time automated speech-to-text transcription …

Head-Up Display Symbology For Surface Operations: Eye Tracking Analysis Of Command-Guidance Vs. Situation-Guidance Formats, John Wilson, Becky L. Hooey, David C. Foyle

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

This study investigated pilots' taxi performance and distribution of visual attention with four different head-up display (HUD) symbology formats: Command-guidance, Situation-guidance, Hybrid, and a baseline, No-route guidance. Taxi speed and centerline accuracy were highest with Hybrid and Situation-guidance whereas Commandguidance and No-guidance resulted in increased visual attention to the head-down map display and side window displays. These results are thought to be due to lack of sufficient preview information with the Command-guidance symbology. The conformal route information of the Situation-guidance and Hybrid HUD formats provided a common reference with the environment, which may have supported better distribution of attention.

Metrics Of Information Complexity For Air Traffic Control Displays, Jing Xing

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

Information complexity associated with visual displays is a bottleneck that limits their use. While automation tools are designed to bring new functions to users and increase their capacities, they also creates new tasks associated with acquiring and integrating information from displays. In particular, a complex display increases information load to human operators and reduces usability. Thus the efficiency of the tool largely depends on the complexity of displayed information. To evaluate the costs and benefits of an automation system, it is important to understand how much information is shown on the display, and whether the information is too complex for …

Pilots' Conflict Detection With Imperfect Conflict Alerting System For The Cockpit Display Of Traffic Information, Xidong Xu, Christopher D. Wickens, Esa M. Rantanen

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

Twenty-four pilots viewed dynamic encounters between the pilot’s “ownship” and an intruder aircraft on a 2-D simulated Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI) and estimated the point and time of closest approach. A three-level alert system provided a correct categorical estimate of the projected miss distance (MD) on 83% of the trials. The remaining 17% of alerts incorrectly predicted MD. The data of these pilots were compared with a matched “baseline” pilots, who viewed identical trials without the aid of automated alerts. Roughly half the pilots depended on and benefited from this automation, and others did not. Those who benefited …

Effects Of Workload And Likelihood Information On Human Response To Alarm Signals, Ernesto A. Bustamante, James P. Bliss

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

The purpose of this study was to examine how workload and likelihood information would affect participants’ responses to alarm signals while they performed a battery of tasks. As expected, participants’ overall response rates and false alarm response rates were significantly lower, and true alarm response rates were significantly higher when they used a likelihood alarm system. These results were particularly noticeable under high workload conditions. Results from this study suggest that although people may respond less often to alarm signals when they are provided with likelihood information, they will more likely respond to true signals rather than false alarms. Therefore, …

Eid For A Terrain-Aware Synthetic Vision System, Clark Borst, Marieke Suijkerbuijk, Max Mulder, Rene M.M. Van Passen

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) are likely to become an integral part of the commercial flight deck in the future. The introduction of SVS is driven by the need to increase safety, most notably to reduce Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT). Various avionics companies and research institutes have successfully developed SVS that have shown to increase the pilot’s situational awareness regarding to attitude, position and clearance relative to the terrain. To further increase the pilot’s terrain awareness, we believe that more meaningful information should be added to the synthetic view on the outside world. This can be accomplished by showing the …

Developing Pilot Skills In Crm Assessment: An Effective Tool For The Check Pilot, Jose Manuel Ponz Cantó

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

The European Joint Aviation Authorities eventually opted for making the check pilot responsible for CRM skills assessment. Along the way, several options were considered; NOTECHS, a version of LOSA, or even special tests for CRM skill demonstration.

Eventually, it was decided that CRM skills should not be evaluated outside of the pilot´s flying environment (we believe quite rightly), and such skills, or behavioural markers should only be assessed during flight checks.

Thus, the problem was apparently solved. However, no provisions were made for the training of check pilots in CRM assessment, and no special training other than required in the …

Atcs Age And En Route Operational Errors: A Re-Investigation, Dana Broach

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

Public Law 92-297 requires that air traffic control specialists (ATCSs), hired on or after May 16, 1972, retire at age 56. This law is based on testimony given in 1971 that as controllers aged, the cumulative effects of stress, fatigue (from shift work), and age-related cognitive changes created a safety risk (U.S. House of Representatives, 1971). The hypothesis has been considered in two studies of en route operational errors (OEs) with contradictory results (Center for Naval Analyses Corporation (CNAC), 1995; Broach, 1999). The purpose of this re-investigation was to test the hypothesis that controller age, controlling for experience, was related …

Speech Errors Management In Air Traffic Control Communications: A Detailed Study, Jean-Leon Bouraoui, Nadine Vigouroux

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

Many studies have reported on some human factors influencing the communication process, especially in aeronautical framework (see Davison (2003) for example). When spoken, communication comprises three different components: production, perception and understanding. The communication is often disturbed by one or many errors that affect one or several of these components. Consequently, one way to make air traffic control (ATC) communications more efficient and robust is to have as much knowledge as possible on these problems and their usual management. This paper presents the interests brought by corpus-based studies to Air Traffic Control (ATC) applications, especially interactions/communication between controllers and pilots. …

Ab Initio Training In The Glass Cockpit Era: New Technology Meets New Pilots: A Preliminary Descriptive Analysis, Paul A. Craig, John E. Bertrand, Wayne Dornan, Steve Gossett

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

The Aerospace Department at Middle Tennessee State University and the NASA Langley Research Center entered into a cooperative agreement in 2003. The project is named the SATS Aerospace Flight Education Research (SAFER) and is part of NASA’s Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) initiative. The SATS project envisions a future flight environment that employs small aircraft to transport people and cargo from point to point using smaller, under utilized airports instead of major gridlocked airports. The aircraft used in the SATS vision would take advantage of a range of emerging technologies including glass cockpits, new structures, and new engines. But with …

Cognitive Tunneling, Aircraft-Pilot Coupling Design Issues And Scenario Interpretation Under Stress In Recent Airline Accidents, Meredith A. Bell, Eugenio L. Facci, Razia V. Nayeem

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

By building upon a number of accident reports and on cognitive psychology literature, this paper addresses the effect of stress on the reasoning abilities and on the perceptual processes of pilots. We examine several cases, including American Airlines 587 (New York, 2001), United Airlines 173 (Portland, 1978), KLM 4508 (Tenerife, 1977), Northwest Airlines 6231(Thiells NY, 1974), and Eastern Airlines 401 (Everglades, 1972), in which pilots have, or may have, contributed to an accident by incorrectly interpreting the unfolding scenario, and specifically by disregarding alternative interpretations of the unfolding scenario. While current research efforts have yet to provide guidance on how …

Line Pilot Performance Of Memory Items, Howard Au

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

An evaluation of Boeing 737 line pilot performance of memory items in 5 abnormal checklists was performed in a single-blind experiment using tabletop exercises at the crew base of a major U.S. airline. A study of 16 pilots shows that performance of memory items results in errors in identifying the failure, selecting the proper checklist to be completed, and checklist step errors.

The Identification Of Training Needs For Developing Aeronautical Decision Making Training Programs For Military Pilots, Wen-Chin Li, Don Harris, Chung-San Yu

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

This research applies Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS; Wiegmann & Shappell, 2003) analyzing aviation accidents in the R.O.C. Air Force between 1978 and 2002 in order to identify the training needs of aeronautical decision-making (ADM). There were 523 accidents associated with 1762 human errors. The results indicated that decision errors had been involved in 223 (42.6%) accidents. Without in-depth analysis of decision errors in military aviation, it is unlikely to identify precisely the training needs of ADM and the nature of the training content required to prevent the decision errors in aviation (Patrick, 2003). This research found that …

Measurement Of Situation Awareness Effects Of Adaptive Automation Of Air Traffic Control Information Processing Functions, Carlene M. Perry, Noa Segall, David B. Kaber

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

The goal of this research was to define a measure of situation awareness (SA) in an air traffic control (ATC) task and to investigate the effect of adaptive automation (AA) of various information processing functions on SA. An ATC simulation was used that was capable of presenting four different modes of control, including information acquisition, information analysis, decision making and action implementation automation, and a manual mode. Eight subjects completed two trials under each mode of control. Operator workload, assessed using a secondary task, was used to trigger automation of the primary ATC task. The SA measure was an adaptation …

Cognitive Systems Engineering Approach To Shared Situation Awareness For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Matthijs Amelink, Max Mulder, Rene Van Paassen, John Flach

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

Integration of UAVs with Air Traffic Control (ATC) is a world wide problem. ATC is already troubled by capacity problems due to a vast amount of air traffic. In the future when large numbers of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) will participate in the same airspace, the situation cannot afford to have UAVs that need special attention. Regulations for UAV flights in civil airspace are still being developed but it is expected that authorities will require UAVs to operate “like manned aircraft”. The implication is that UAVs need to become full participants of a complex socio-technical environment and need to generate …

Coordinated Contingency Planning In The Face Of Uncertainty In The National Aviation System, Philip J. Smith, Amy Spencer, Charlie Billings

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

One of the major challenges for strategic planning in aviation concerns uncertainty about weather and traffic constraints, as traffic managers often have to disseminate reroute advisories 2 hours before an expected constraint impacts an airport, and dispatchers file flight plans 60-75 minutes before a flight’s departure. When the predictions used to for these plans are wrong, significant inefficiencies (unused airspace and runway capacity from a traffic manager’s perspective and delayed flights from a dispatcher’s perspective) often result. To make operations more adaptive, new procedures have been developed. These procedures involve using predefined Coded Departure Routes, and are now being extended …

A Simulation Evaluation Of A Human-Centered Approach To Flight Deck Procedures And Automation For En Route Free Maneuvering, Walter W. Johnson, Vernol Battiste, Stacie Granada, Nancy Johnson, Arik Quang Dao, Dominic Wong, Anthony Tang

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

A joint simulation was conducted by NASA Ames and Langley Research Centers. This paper presents flight deck performance and subjective data collected at the NASA Ames Research Center. During the simulation of en route free maneuvering, the presence and mixture of managed and autonomous aircraft was manipulated, as was the number of autonomous aircraft.. These manipulations allowed for an examination of the viability of both conducting mixed AFR-IFR operations, and of substantially increasing en route traffic through insertion of AFR aircraft. The Ames airside performance and pilot comment data support the safety and feasibility of the concept, with double en …

Flight Test Evaluation Of Situation Awareness Benefits Of Integrated Synthetic Vision System Technology For Commercial Aircraft, Lawrence J. Prinzel Iii, Lynda J. Kramer, Jarvis J. Arthur Iii, Randall E. Bailey, J. Raymond Comstock

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

Research was conducted onboard a Gulfstream G-V aircraft to evaluate integrated Synthetic Vision System concepts during flight tests over a 6-week period at the Wallops Flight Facility and Reno/Tahoe International Airport. The NASA Synthetic Vision System incorporates database integrity monitoring, runway incursion prevention alerting, surface maps, enhanced vision sensors, and advanced pathway guidance and synthetic terrain presentation. The paper details the goals and objectives of the flight test with a focus on the situation awareness benefits of integrating synthetic vision system enabling technologies for commercial aircraft.

The Stl Model: A Three-Dimensional Perspective On Organizational Change Programs, Manoj S. Patankar Ph.D., Thomas Bigda-Peyton Ph.D., Jeffery Brown M. Ed.

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

This paper examines organizational change programs across aviation, healthcare, and financial services sectors. Based on the analysis of three key programs, a theoretical model, which could be used to describe the state of any organizational change program, is presented. This model is called the STL Model and is represented by three mutually perpendicular axes: scalability, transferability, and longevity. In simplest terms, scalability refers to “volume;” greater the volume of users of, or participants in, a particular change program, the greater the scalability of that change program. Transferability refers to the number of user-groups, whether within a specific discipline or outside. …

Complexity Mitigation Through Airspace Structure, M. L. Cummings, C. G. Tsonis, D. C. Cunha

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

Cognitive complexity is a term that appears frequently in air traffic control research literature, yet there has not been a significant distinction between different components of complexity, such as environmental, organizational, and display complexity, all which influence cognitive complexity. It is not well understood if and how these different sources of complexity add to controller cognitive complexity and workload. In order to address this need for complexity decomposition and deconstruction, an experiment was conducted to explore whether or not different components of complexity could be effectively measured and compared. The goal of the experiment was to quantify whether or not …

Validation Of A Modern Aviation Psychology Test Battery Using Aertificial Neural Networks: First Results Of Two Pilot Studies, Markus Sommer, Dr. G. Schuhfried Gmbh

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

The present paper deals with the problem of data integration in the context of aviation psychological assessment. In the first pilot study 99 pilot applicants completed a comprehensive test battery. The general judgment of the candidates’ performance in a flight simulator served as an external criterion. To examine the predictive validity of this test battery, both a discriminant analysis as well as an artificial neural network were calculated and compared with each other with regard to classification rate, stability, and their respective differentiability of suited and not suited applicants based on their success probabilities. The results of this first pilot …

Discussing Monotony In Atc: Effects Of Repetitive Traffic Patterns On Performance And Subjective Indicators, Sonj Straussberger, Wolfgang Kallus, Dirk Schaefer

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

This study addresses the concept of monotony in ATC and describes uneventful and repetitive work conditions evoking such a state. Psychophysiological effects of repetitiveness in two simulated ATC-scenarios of low or high dynamic density (DD) were investigated with 24 air traffic controllers (M=29.5 years, 18 male, six female). Interactions approached significance (p<0.1) in conflict resolution time for an out-of-routine conflict situation. Conflict resolution lasted longer in repetitive traffic and resolution time increased from the first to the second run. Those findings are supported by a composite score of subjective attentiveness, fatigue, sleepiness, and concentration with lower values found in repetitive conditions. Although generally decreasing, the switch from low to high DD was rated favorably on the hedonic tone, while tense arousal was reacting more pronounced in non repetitive and low-high condition. In combination with the development of earlier reported cardiovascular (heart rate, heart rate variability) and subjective indicators the results underline the significance of a multidimensional assessment of monotony in ATC.

Collective Training Research Utilizing Returning Combat Aircrews, Lessons Learned, Dr. Larry Katz, Kurt Kline

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

This paper describes an experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of the U.S. Army’s Aircrew Coordination Training Enhancement (ACTE) program delivered by distance learning. A large-scale experiment was designed and executed using three groups of aircrews that received either electronic classroom-based instruction with instructor facilitation on site, distance learning training using the unit’s local Digital Training Facility with the primary instructor off site, or no training. Aircrews with varying levels of experience recently returning from combat were evaluated using event-based scenarios performed in the Aviation Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (AVCATT). Measures were developed within Kirkpatrick’s (1998) framework. Execution of the experiment …

Evaluation Of Pilot And Runway Characteristics Associated With Runway Incursions, Kathleen Mcgarry, Gregory Niehus

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

A study was conducted to determine possible pilot and airport characteristics that could be used to predict surface incidents (SI) committed by pilots. The study was conducted by analyzing the videotape data from a previous simulation study (Surface Technology Assessment Product Team, 2004) that tested the ability of dynamic taxiway message signs called Addressable Message Boards (AMB) to enhance pilot situation awareness (SA) and reduce the likelihood of SIs at controlled airports. The current study did not take into consideration the impact of AMBs on SIs, but specifically focused on pilot and scenario characteristics. The results of the study indicate …

Pilot Acceptance, Compliance, And Performance With An Airborne Conflict Management Toolset, Nathan A. Doble, Richard Barhydt, Dr. Karthik Krishnamurthy

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2005

A human-in-the-loop experiment was conducted at the NASA Ames and Langley Research Centers, investigating the En Route Free Maneuvering component of a future air traffic management concept termed Distributed Air/Ground Traffic Management (DAG-TM). NASA Langley test subject pilots used the Autonomous Operations Planner (AOP) airborne toolset to detect and resolve traffic conflicts, interacting with subject pilots and air traffic controllers at NASA Ames. Experimental results are presented, focusing on conflict resolution maneuver choices, AOP resolution guidance acceptability, and performance metrics. Based on these results, suggestions are made to further improve the AOP interface and functionality.