The effects of wearing pilots' oxygen masks on cognitive performance

We analysed cognitive performance of professional pilots in two visual and one acoustical cognitive task while wearing two different kinds of oxygen masks for aircraft. The study was conducted in a simulator environment with a sample of N = 18 French pilots. The air composition was held constant. Compared to baseline performance, there were no performance detriments in the visual tasks when accuracy was analysed. However, wearing the masks slowed down performance speed, although marginally. Also, the detriments were much smaller than the subjective feeling of inhibition as identified in an earlier study. In the acoustical task, a decrease in performance in accuracy and speed could only be observed in multiple task and therefore high workload situations. The underlying mechanisms that might cause the diverse detriments on different stages of cognitive processing are discussed as well as the practical implications, especially for enhancing compliance to professional mask wearing.Practitioner summary: In a simulation experiment, the effects of oxygen mask wearing on cognitive performance were shown to be marginal, although pilots might state feelings of subjective impairment. The results can help to foster mask wearing in pilots.