Important measures for flying performance are deviations from required norms of relevant flight parameters such as speed, height, course and landing approach path (e.g. an approach with Instrument Landing System).
Sometimes performance measures are used to compare different systems (for example cockpit layouts).
One problem is that when we use performance measures for this comparison we often do not see if there is a difference in human effort spend to achieve the same results.
One way to handle this problem is to put the individual under additional mental load :
distraction stress.
One way to create distraction stress is to impose another (standardized) task on the task of which the performance is measured.
Distraction stress could for example be an aural binary choice task with a fixed, predetermined number of responses required per minute. This is called a binary choice task under paced condition (e.g 30 tones per minute). When the subject makes to many errors in this task he has
Afailed@ and the experiment is terminated.This procedure is demonstrated in a DC7 flight simulator experiment comparing performance with different cockpit systems.
Relevant link :
The author also used this method to check if Air Pilots workload (pilot with 30 t.p.m.BCG aural distraction stress) was related to that pilots Air Traffic (radar) Controllers` workload (the radar controllers` aural BCG spare mental capacity). This was done in actual instrument night flights with radar controlled approaches -Schiphol airport, Amsterdam-).
Relevant links :
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