Mental workload can exceed human capacities at various times or conditions when
ID: 3507645 • Letter: M
Question
Mental workload can exceed human capacities at various times or conditions when executing aviation tasks. Provide an example for such an event, explain the contributing factors, and describe the effects. Next, provide one or more demonstrated solutions to either prevent the event or counteract the consequences. Explain how you would address the issue of individual differences in reaching capacity and what is likely to occur in the aftermath with respect to continued cognitive clarity. Provide at least three scholarly references that are related to your choice and description
Explanation / Answer
Workload is defined as the amount of cognitive or attention resources being expended at any given point in time based on the information processing theory. It is the difference between the information that needs to be processed to make decisions and the capacity of the individual to meet those demands
So far, the aviation society has been spending and investing their efforts and money to fix such problems explained in the introduction section. They also have developed a new approach procedure such as the Steep Angle approach, which has more than 3degree of a gliding
angle, in order to reduce the noise created by aircrafts. Current approach procedures have a
common gliding angle of 3o. They have mainly focused on testing the aircraft capability than the pilot workload and stress. Thus, there are only few researches that report on how the steep angle over 3o affects pilot workload at Final Approach to L/D phase, which is known as the most dangerous flight segment. Therefore, the assessment of pilot workload for executing new procedures at Final Approach to L/D phase is an important aspect to improve the aviation safety and human health under various environmental factors (e.g. weather, traffic volume in approach area, type of approach area, etc.).
the objectives are-1) To compare the level of pilot performance, workload, and stress experienced by both experienced pilots and less-experienced pilots.
2) To identify and describe pilot performance, workload, and stress with two different levels of a gliding angle (e.g. 3o and 4.5°).
3) To investigate whether environments of the final approach course (e.g. Non- Populated & Populated area) has an impact on pilot performance, workload, and stress or not.
it would be taken as a generic term to encompass all those occasions in which a planned sequence of mental or physical activities failed to achieve its intended outcome.
McCormick and Sanders (1993) also defined that human error was an inappropriate or undesirable human decision or behavior that reduced, or had the potential for reducing, effectiveness, safety, or system performance. In the past, human error has been used to describe operator error. Recently, the broader perspective of human error has considered other humans (e.g. managers, system designers, maintainers, and coworkers) as a contributor to an accident. Petersen (1996) stated that human error is the basic cause behind all accidents.
Workload is defined as the amount of cognitive or attention resources being expended at any given point in time based on the information processing theory. It is the difference between the information that needs to be processed to make decisions and the capacity of the individual to meet those demands. Besides, workload is widely used for various measurement techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of the equipment and work systems by researchers of human factors.
Many researchers have reported that mental or physical workload is an important factor in determining human performance in complex systems. Thus, it has been recognized that optimizing the allocation of workload to individuals can reduce human errors and lead to increase in productivity
For example, human error has been cited as a
cause or contributing factor on disasters and accidents in industries such as nuclear power (e.g. Three Mile Island accident), aviation (e.g. pilot error), space exploration (e.g., Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster), and medicine (e.g. medical error) (Reason,1990; Woods, 1990). Therefore, human error prevention can be the greatest contributor to improve productivity, quality, and safety.
Many aviation accidents do not happen with a single event or a single mistake. They rather result from a chain of such events and mistakes culminating with the errors of aircrews, especially the pilots. Pilot error, called cockpit error in the aviation field, is a term used to describe the cause of an accident involving an aircraft where the pilot is considered to be principally or partially responsible. It can be defined as a mistake, oversight, or lapse in judgment by an aircraft operator during the flight.
Therefore, it is necessary to design systems and flight procedures that can reduce cognitive demands in order to not exceed the capacities of the human operators. The complexity of flying requires the pilots to use numerous cognitive processes. So, more than one measurement is required to determine the pilot workload. One measurement cannot be expected to give a full insight into the multifaceted nature of piloting. The various aspects of workload have led to distinct means for assessing pilot workload, including psycho- physiological criteria (e.g. the heart rate, the heart rate variability, the evocation of potentials, etc.), performance criteria (e.g. quantity and quality of performance), and subjective criteria (such as rating of level of effort)
Main are- psycho-physiological measurements,subjective measurement, performance measurement.
Workload contains multifaceted and complicated terms controlled by various factors, which include: 1) the skill of the operator 2) training 3) operating procedures 4) operating conditions 5) staffing levels and competence 6) task allocations 7) job task demands 8) organizational expectations 9) task complexity, and 10) work pace.For this research, three factors were considered: 1) levels of experience as a skill of the operator factor 2) levels of a gliding angle as an operating procedure, and 3) different approach areas as an operating condition.
Now the types of workload-
An aircraft always needs a wide, long, and open area (e.g. runway, grass field, highway, etc.) to make a safe landing. In the past, almost all airports were built outside of cities. However, as cities expanded, many airports got surrounded by metropolitan cities and aircrafts fly over them to land at the airport. However, few research was conducted about the effect of the simulated ground features (e.g. tree, building, antenna, etc) in Final Approach to L/D area.
During the VFR flight, the aircrafts are controlled by the perceived orientation of the ground terrain, which relies on a visual reference such as trees, buildings, etc. As a ground theory, Calvert (1954) mentioned that the ground features gave some motivations to develop an approach lighting system, which gives visual reference to the pilot. An absence of the ground features can create the visual illusion that makes the pilots believe that the aircraft is at a higher altitude than it actually is. For example, the pilot who does not recognize this illusion can fly lower while landing over water, darkened areas, and featureless snow fields.
Some simulation studies have provided empirical support showing that pilots tended to 26
overestimate gliding angles toward a schematic (i.e., impoverished) runway (Palmisano & Gillam, 2005; Lewis & Mertens, 1979; Kraft, 1978; Mertens, 1978). They also found that increasing true orientation of the ground features improved the subjects gliding path judgment.
However, without any information on the instrument panel, the pilots cannot always judge the exact height of a ground feature. They can over estimate or under estimate the height of obstacles. A common factor in aircraft accidents is a failure to maintain an adequate clearance from the objects or the surface. After examining the performance of helicopter pilots during the hovering flight task, Johnson and Phatak (1989) found that the pilots attempted to maintain an altitude by holding a fixed optical location on a ground; a strategy that led to inappropriate altitude corrections in response to vehicle movements. As a result of the study on pilots altitude perception under the real situation to operate a helicopter, Ungs and Sangal (1990) found that the pilots showed wide variation for each test. For example, some achieved altitudes exceeding the target altitude by 100 % and the others flied below the target altitude when ascending and descending. Specially, it appeared that more pilots tended to underestimate their altitudes during descending even though altitude perception of the pilots is important to fly safely during VFR flight.