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Pilot mental workload: how well do pilots really perform?

Charles H Morris1, Ying K Leung

  • 1Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, 3122 Victoria, Australia.

Ergonomics
|November 9, 2006
PubMed
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High mental workload impairs pilot performance, especially flight control and prioritization. Comprehension of Air Traffic Control instructions rapidly deteriorates beyond two chunks under stress.

Area of Science:

  • Aviation Psychology
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Cognitive Performance

Background:

  • The aviate-navigate-communicate hierarchy is a standard in aviation for task prioritization.
  • Understanding how mental workload affects this hierarchy is crucial for flight safety.
  • Previous research indicates cognitive load can impact complex task performance.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine the impact of increased mental demands on aircrew performance.
  • To assess the resilience of the aviate-navigate-communicate prioritization hierarchy under stress.
  • To identify performance decrements in trainee pilots with rising cognitive load.

Main Methods:

  • 42 trainee pilots were assigned to low, medium, or high workload groups.
  • A computer-based simulation involved flight control, rule-based actions, and cognitive processing.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Auditory Air Traffic Control instructions varied from one to seven information chunks.

    • Main Results:

    • Increased mental workload and auditory input significantly hindered flight control tasks.
    • A notable decline in task prioritization was observed with rising workload.
    • Pilot comprehension of auditory data rapidly degraded when processing more than two chunks under high workload.

    Conclusions:

    • The aviate-navigate-communicate hierarchy's robustness is compromised under high mental workload.
    • Trainee pilots struggle with primary tasks and prioritization when cognitive demands are high.
    • Auditory information processing capacity is severely limited by high mental workload in pilots.