Dissociation Between Mental Workload, Performance, and Task Awareness in Pilots of High Performance Aircraft

Heikki Petteri Mansikka; Kai  Virtanen; Don Harris

doi:10.1109/THMS.2018.2874186

Dissociation Between Mental Workload, Performance, and Task Awareness in Pilots of High Performance Aircraft

Heikki Petteri Mansikka, Kai Virtanen, Don Harris

Institute for Future Transport and Cities

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

57 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how the inclusion of a tactical task goal awareness measure complemented mental workload and performance measures in a simulated air combat mission. It was hypothesized that the evaluation of the tactical task goal awareness could provide additional information concerning the cognitive demands a pilot is exposed to during a complex air combat task. A test setting was developed to test this hypothesis in a virtual flight training device. To highlight the impact of task complexity, high performance aircraft pilots’ heart rate (HR), interbeat-interval (IBI), and performance in two simple flying tasks were first compared. Then, a similar comparison, complemented with the tactical task goal awareness measure, was made with two complex flying tasks. It was found that when the pilot's awareness of the tactical goals was low, a combination of low performance and low mental workload occurred. It was concluded that when the pilots’ performance is evaluated on a complex air combat task, the awareness of the tactical goals, performance, and mental workload should be studied together as the pilot's awareness can explain some of HR/IBI responses that could be otherwise misinterpreted. More generally, mental workload, performance, and task goal awareness should all be considered when the operator's performance in any complex human–machine system is assessed.

Original language	English
Article number	8506440
Pages (from-to)	1-9
Number of pages	9
Journal	IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems
Volume	49
Issue number	1
Early online date	24 Oct 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2018.2874186
Publication status	Published - Feb 2019

Bibliographical note

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

Copyright © and Moral Rights are retained by the author(s) and/ or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This item cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.

Keywords

Aerospace simulation
air combat
mental workload (MWL)
system performance
task goal awareness

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Human Factors and Ergonomics
Control and Systems Engineering
Signal Processing
Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Science Applications
Computer Networks and Communications
Artificial Intelligence

Access to Document

10.1109/THMS.2018.2874186

Post-PrintAccepted author manuscript, 1.25 MBLicence: CC BY

Link to publication in Scopus

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Don Harris
- Faculty of Engineering, Environment & Computing - Professor of Human Factors
- Institute for Future Transport and Cities - Associate
Person: Teaching and Research

Cite this

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abstract = "The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how the inclusion of a tactical task goal awareness measure complemented mental workload and performance measures in a simulated air combat mission. It was hypothesized that the evaluation of the tactical task goal awareness could provide additional information concerning the cognitive demands a pilot is exposed to during a complex air combat task. A test setting was developed to test this hypothesis in a virtual flight training device. To highlight the impact of task complexity, high performance aircraft pilots{\textquoteright} heart rate (HR), interbeat-interval (IBI), and performance in two simple flying tasks were first compared. Then, a similar comparison, complemented with the tactical task goal awareness measure, was made with two complex flying tasks. It was found that when the pilot's awareness of the tactical goals was low, a combination of low performance and low mental workload occurred. It was concluded that when the pilots{\textquoteright} performance is evaluated on a complex air combat task, the awareness of the tactical goals, performance, and mental workload should be studied together as the pilot's awareness can explain some of HR/IBI responses that could be otherwise misinterpreted. More generally, mental workload, performance, and task goal awareness should all be considered when the operator's performance in any complex human–machine system is assessed.",

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