Browse Topic: Mental processes
A study of mental workload and the resultant cognitive-motor behavior is essential to understanding the intrinsic limitations of the human information processing system, the results of which have impact on the design of safety-critical systems. While the effects of increased task demand on mental workload and the quality of cognitive-motor performance has been previously investigated, it remains unclear how system controllability (i.e., expected handling qualities) impacts perceptual workload and performance. Furthermore, traditional EEG spectral metrics lack the temporal specificity to capture dynamic workload. Consequently, the purpose of this experiment was to examine objective brain dynamics, task performance, and subjective ratings during piloting tracking tasks of varying complexity while also challenging participants with different expected levels of handling qualities. Our results revealed a trend suggestive of increasing mental workload related to increased task complexity and varying levels of expected handling qualities. To examine dynamic operator workload with increased temporal fidelity, we introduce a time-resolved cross-correlation based approach to assess synchronous dynamics between cortical activity and behavioral performance. The findings herein highlight the practical significance of including analyses of the time domain in workload assessment, in addition to the functional utility of a combination of metrics in the study of the temporally linked cognitive-motor output associated with increased mental workload.
This paper investigates the use of multi-modal cueing through full-body haptic feedback to enhance pilot-vehicle system (PVS) performance, reduce mental workload (MWL), and increase situational awareness (SA) in both good and degraded visual environments (GVE/DVE). Piloted simulations were conducted using an H-60-like flight dynamics model in a virtual reality (VR) motion-based simulator, evaluating two ADS-33-like mission task elements (MTEs) – precision hover and slalom – under visual-only and combined visual and haptic feedback conditions in both GVE and DVE. The H-60 flight dynamics were augmented with a dynamic inversion (DI)- based stability augmentation system (SAS), implementing rate-command/attitude hold (RCAH) response type on the roll, pitch, and yaw axes and altitude hold response type on the vertical axis. The SAS was designed to achieve Level 1 handling qualities per ADS-33 standards. The full-body haptic cueing strategy leveraged an outer-loop DI control law, which provided vibrotactile feedback to cue desired roll, pitch, and yaw attitudes to the pilot. Roll cues were delivered via tactors mounted on the upper arms, pitch cues via tactors on the chest and back, and yaw cues via tactors on the calves. Eight test subjects participated in the piloted simulations, including three U.S. Navy test pilots and five subjects with different flying experiences. Results indicated that haptic feedback significantly improved hover performance, reducing MWL and enhancing SA, particularly in DVE. However, in the slalom task, predefined haptic guidance misaligned with pilots’ individual control strategies, leading to performance degradation. This finding highlights the need for pilot-specific adaptive haptic feedback to mitigate inconsistencies in dynamic maneuvering tasks.
ABSTRACT Imagine Soldiers reacting to an unpredictable, dynamic, stressful situation on the battlefield. How those Soldiers think about the information presented to them by the system or other Soldiers during this situation – and how well they translate that into thinking into effective behaviors – is critical to how well they perform. Importantly, those thought processes (i.e., cognition) interact with both external (e.g., the size of the enemy force, weather) and internal (e.g., ability to communicate, personality, fatigue level) factors. The complicated nature of these interactions can have dramatic and unexpected consequences, as is seen in the analysis of military and industrial disasters, such as the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655, or the partial core meltdown on Three Mile Island. In both cases, decision makers needed to interact with equipment and personnel in a stressful, dynamic, and uncertain environment. Similarly, the complex and dynamic nature of the contemporary operating environment faced by the United States Army makes it clear that mission performance depends on systems that are engineered to ensure that the complex systems of people and technology (i.e., sociotechnical systems) can sustain high levels of cognitive performance needed for succeed. This session overview highlights cognitive engineering and illustrates how modeling and simulation can address different aspects of this important field.
ABSTRACT
This study is a part of an ongoing series of studies examining cueing modalities to circumvent the in-flight effects of degraded visual environments (DVEs) in a rotary wing aircraft. The suite of cueing modalities investigated include visual cueing symbology, auditory cueing, and tactile cueing. This study compared the use of combinations of these cueing modalities to find which resulted in the best performance and the least amount of workload required of the pilot. This specific paper focuses on the analysis of pupillometric data collected through video-based eye-tracking to measure cognitive workload. Results are discussed.
The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has created uncertainty and delays in procedures, but hospitals and surgeons still need a steady supply of product, meaning that the orthopedics industry must keep innovating. One thing is certain, 2020 will be a turbulent year for procedure demand. Early on, analysts predicted that because many orthopedic procedures are elective, they would be postponed to help free up space for critically ill patients. While the recovery of orthopedic procedures has begun more quickly than analysts initially expected, it seems likely it will take longer than expected to reach full recovery as we look into 2021. June ordering patterns were already much higher than May, but the quicker recovery may indicate a second decline (W-shaped) versus a sharp decline followed by a quick recovery (V-shaped).
There is emerging demand for multi-ship sensor-based 3D world modeling (3DWM) for autonomy/cognitive decision aiding avionics applications. In these systems, multiple ships collect and transmit perception sensor data that is fused into a common 3DWM, which is then used by other platforms for flight guidance in that environment. This paper illustrates key design considerations for these systems by exploring the fundamental scenario of leader-follower. This paper will detail the design trade space for the leader-follower scenario, focusing on 3DWM database representation/processing and data transmission. To demonstrate the feasibility of a baseline design approach on modern computing hardware, results will be presented from an experimental evaluation of a proof-of-concept system.
The U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift Optimally Crewed Vehicle program is developing and exercising a strategy for determining crewing that facilitates human-machine teaming by supporting human expertise, leveraging sophisticated automation, and facilitating the joint cognitive team. Traditional approaches to function allocation have resulted in systems that capitalize on the strengths of automation but not the strengths of humans, exhibit brittleness during off- nominal events, and underestimate the amount of work necessary to manage automation. The new strategy developed for this program, based on an extensive literature review, incorporates methods from cognitive task analysis, cognitive work analysis, and human performance modeling/simulation into the following five activities: (1) analyzing function allocation tradespace; (2) analyzing operational demands and work requirements; (3) analyzing interdependencies between human and automation; (4) evaluating alternative options with human performance modeling/simulation; (5) identifying and evaluating alternative function allocation and crewing options. The activities are described with excerpts of associated products.
Helicopter military missions such as combat search and rescue, medical evacuation and landing on unprepared sites can involve operating in hostile, low-altitude, and degraded visual environments (DVE). These conditions may significantly reduce the pilot's capability to use the natural out of the window (OTW) perceptual cues, increase workload and increase the risk of collision with terrain and natural or man-made obstacles. In modern helicopter cockpits, synthetic vision systems (SVSs) can employ conventional nonconformal two-dimensional (2D), egocentric three-dimensional (3D) conformal symbology (CS) and laser detection and ranging (LADAR)/ radio detection and ranging (RADAR)/ forward looking infrared (FLIR) imagery support guidance and control, especially during operations in DVE. Although 3D CS can decrease pilot workload, it can also produce attentional tunneling (cognitive capture) and may not provide maximally effective depiction of the environment around the helicopter. In this context, it is crucial to develop integrated multimodal interfaces that extend the current operational envelope while enhancing flight safety. Several flight simulator studies have investigated the use of spatial auditory displays (SADs) in combination with spatially and temporally congruent visual displays in tasks as diverse as collision avoidance, intruding aircraft detection, or system malfunction warning. In this paper we propose a novel approach to spatial sonification design based on the premises that perception-based synthetic cueing can increase situation awareness (SA), improve overall performance, and allow mental workload to be kept at operationally effective levels. This paper discusses the development, implementation, and evaluation of a sensor-based augmented-reality spatial auditory display (ARSAD) and its visual analog, an integrated collision avoidance display (ICAD) for all phases of flight. Five UH60M Army pilots participated in a low-level flight simulation evaluating the visual and the auditory displays, alone or in combination in low-visibility and zero visibility environments. The results are discussed in the context of pilot cueing synergies for DVE.
ABSTRACT Shipboard-landing maneuvers in rotorcraft piloting involve a number of unique challenges. Such maneuvers can be cognitively demanding even for experienced rotorcraft pilots. To minimize risk, these maneuvers are conducted within well-defined boundaries related to weather and visibility. In order to expand this envelope, technological aids are being proposed to augment decision making capabilities and reduce pilot workload without compromising safety. Our paper reports a cognitive task analysis, which involved interviews with four rotorcraft pilots, who were experienced in shipboard-landing maneuvers. Our results reveal points of high cognitive load, where expertise plays a critical role. We have articulated our understanding on why pilots are faced with difficulties during these critical points, which led us towards design recommendations and system requirements for technological aids. We have also identified a number of system limitations and quantities of interest, which may be useful in defining safety thresholds.
ABSTRACT Low-level flight missions can be complex, at times requiring any or all of the following: maneuvering and navigating over challenging terrain, scanning for hostile or friendly units, operation in degraded visibility, radio communications, and decision-making in uncertain and dynamics environments. These conditions, and time, will affect mental workload (MWL) and performance. While direct performance measurements are normally available, information on pilot workload must either be obtained through (intrusive) subjective measures directly from the pilot, or inferred using indirect measurements. Performance can affect MWL, and MWL can affect performance - as the pilot generally perceives and responds to task performance through display interfaces, these displays can be used to manage and balance the tradeoff between MWL and performance. This paper presents the work of a collaborative project between US and Israel whose objectives are to develop a multimodal integrated cueing environment for near-earth helicopter operations, and to validate measures for assessing pilot workload for real-time and post-mission applications. A first simulation experiment was conducted that examined 1) visual cueing depicting both predicted terrain slope and aircraft height-above-ground, and 2) spatial (3D) auditory cueing for depicting predicted deviation from desired height-above-ground and impending collision with terrain. Collected Measures included altitude error, control rate and Bedford rating. Initial results indicate that synergistic visual and auditory cueing can enhance performance, therefore could be used to reduce pilot workload while sustaining performance. A second simulation experiment was designed to assess MWL and task engagement under different workload levels encountered during a low-level mission that included the following conditions: unlimited vs. degraded visibility, presence or absence of obstacles and/or targets and terrain difficulty. Two local measures of workload were favored over a global measure: (1) oculomotor behavior, including the Index of Cognitive Activity (ICA) and (2) pilot's momentary behavior (micro-performance). Preliminary results show promise for using some of these measures as real-time indicators of pilot workload and engagement. The results of these two experiments will provide a framework for the development and evaluation of future workload-adaptive multimodal display concepts for helicopter operations during low-level flight.
ABSTRACT Safety is important in the daily operations of any business, but in the aviation industry, it is paramount. Because each mission, whether critical or routine, relies so heavily on a safe flight environment, pilot and maintenance training must meet the highest educational standards available. To accomplish this, aviation training facilities have to find instructional methods that mimic, as closely as possible, actual flight and maintenance conditions. For practical training, actual aircraft are used for flight and maintenance instruction. For simulated practical training, full-flight simulators and high fidelity flight training devices (FTDs) are used. These methods, while highly effective, are also costly. Time and availability for such flight and simulator devices is also an issue. To train students in a cost-effective, timely manner, aviation industries demand a classroom-based solution. This paper explores a new approach to enhancing training effectiveness through education technology that increases student engagement and retention in the classroom. By using a 3D interactive software engine to build near photo-realistic aircraft system models, the classroom training experience is greatly enhanced, allowing students to learn theory-based aircraft information in a virtual environment. An engaged student learns the material and retains it at a higher cognitive level. This retention leads to safer, more professionally trained pilots and maintainers.
ZONE (Zeroing Out Negative Effects) is a method of biofeedback training for optimal athletic performance. ZONE is designed to improve athletes’ responses to stress, anxiety, and loss of concentration during competition. In the training environment, when the user successfully attains an optimal target state of psychophysiological functioning, the technology informs and/or rewards the user through real-time physical changes in the athletic equipment. For example, in the training setting, a golfer can work toward optimal concentration in the act of putting, leading to improved performance in real situations.
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