Information Processing and Situational Awareness

Question 1

What path will a piece of information take through your brain?

Answer 1

• Input comes into the sensory register
• Selected sense get sent to the working memory
• Information coded and stored in the long term memory

Question 2

What is the sensory register? What are its characteristics?

Answer 2

First place where all senses and input are scanned for importance.
-Very large capacity but duration is very short (few seconds)

Question 3

What is the working memory? What are its characteristics?

Answer 3

Where inputs are sent for analysis.
Inputs can be matched with old long term memories or form new memories
Inputs are coded for storage
Capacity is 7+/-2 items
Duration is about 30 seconds
Memory will last as long as it is being used

Question 4

What is the long term memory? What are its characteristics?

Answer 4

-Permanent, unlimited storage

Question 5

What are the types of long term memory? What is each type?

Answer 5

-Implicit:
Procedural memory - stores motor skills
Hard to teach
Repetition is required to embed

  -Explicit: -Semantic - language and information that has meaning New material will require full attention Learning in-situ will aid in recollection -Episodic - Memory that stores episodes or events It is often inaccurate due to attitudes and preferred outcomes Creates a problem with expert witnesses

Question 6

What happens when the brain is ‘multi-tasking’?

Answer 6

The brain is changing quickly between different tasks as it is only a single channel processor

Question 7

What things can act as a load on the working memory?

Answer 7

• Concentrating on tasks
• Attending to things
• Maintaining situational awareness
• Making decisions

Question 8

What can we do to increase our attention abilities across multiple tasks?

Answer 8

-Time share

Question 9

What can inhibit time sharing?

Answer 9

Stress
Over-concentration
Saturation

Question 10

What can occur when our working memory reaches saturation?

Answer 10

Load shedding

-The brain will prioritise what it perceives as more important things

Question 11

Describe attention grabbing?

Answer 11

• Also called the cocktail party effect
• When your name (or callsign) is spoken elsewhere in a crowded environment, and you are deeply engaged, yet you will hear it
• Allows pilots to respond immediately to radio calls when in a dense traffic environment

Question 12

What is the relationship between Performance and Arousal? Who’s law is it? What is another word for arousal?

Answer 12

Yerkes - Dodson law

• When arousal is low performance is low
• When arousal is medium, performance is optimal
• When arousal is high, performance is low

Arousal = Stress

Question 13

What is the startle effect? How can it be minimised?

Answer 13

• A sudden, uncontrollable event can cause the pilot to experience an uncontrollable and automatic reflex response
• Commonly known as the fight or flight it can cause inappropriate actions for the situation

To reduce:

• Maintain good situational awareness
• Always have a PFLWOP field
• Monitor engine parameters
• Be aware of traffic and terrain environment

Question 14

What is perception?

Answer 14

An active process where you begin to interpret and organise the sensory data and send a small amount of pertinent data to the short term/working memory

Question 15

What can go wrong with perception?

Answer 15

• It mush reach a certain threshold before it can be detected
• Expectation and experience can cause variations to what is actually experienced
• It can be biased, confused or mis-interpreted

Question 16

What are come common perception abnormalities?

Answer 16

• Illusions
• Hallucinations
• Issues when senses conflict

Question 17

What is confirmation bias?

Answer 17

You only take information that you expect to see and disregard any information that you will conflict with what you think

Question 18

What is change-blindness?

Answer 18

• When focusing on one thing you sometimes won’t see things in the surrounds that are changing
• When things change gradually you don’t see that they are changing when you are inside that situation

Question 19

What are some methods to increase working memory?

Answer 19

• Chunking
• Mnemonics
• Association
• Cards
• Rote
• Saying a written instruction aloud
• Visualisation

Question 20

What problems can the long term memory have?

Answer 20

• Memories not always stored accurately
• Problems with retrieving them can be slowed
• New data will be harder to categorise than familiar data (first vs. second type rating)

Question 21

What are the levels of processing that can be achieved?

Answer 21

• Conscious control: Pilot makes decisions and then acts. Operating at the rule or knowledge based level
• Sub-conscious control: Brain recognises a previously matched set of data and applies motor skills that have been learned as an unconscious reaction. Operating at the skill based level

Question 22

What is the definition of situational awareness? 3 key components

Answer 22

The ability of a person to PERCIEVE their surroundings, COMPREHEND the meaning of those surrounds and make a PROJECTION of what they will mean in the future

Question 23

What types of situational awareness must a pilot be able to maintain?

Answer 23

System SA
Environmental SA
Tactical/Mission SA
Geographical SA
Spatial/Temporal SA

Question 24

What are the factors that affect situational awareness?

Answer 24

Attention
System design
Stress and Workload
Automation
Physiological factors
Preconceptions
Ability/ Training/ Experience
Communication

Question 25

What are some methods of increasing situational awareness?

Answer 25

Enquiry
Advocacy
Briefing
Thinking ahead of the aircraft
Reduce the requirements of the person
Provide critical cues for critical events
Systems support
Scanning
Checklists
Training

Question 26

How can group situational awareness be enhanced?

Answer 26

Use all resources
Consider all crew inputs
Avoid arguments
Avoid winner/ loser mentality
Use advocacy and enquiry
Move to assertion if required
Not every decision has to meet everyone's approval
Communication

Question 27

What is group situational awareness limited to?

Answer 27

The situational awareness of the captain