The effects of task difficulty on gaze behaviour during landing with visual flight rules in low-time pilots

Eye movements have been used to examine the cognitive function of pilots and understand how information processing abilities impact performance. Traditional and advanced measures of gaze behaviour effectively reflect changes in cognitive load, situational awareness, and expert-novice differences. However, the extent to which gaze behaviour changes during the early stages of skill development has yet to be addressed. The current study investigated the impact of task difficulty on gaze behaviour in low-time pilots (N=18) while they completed simulated landing scenarios. An increase in task difficulty resulted in longer fixation of the runway, and a reduction in the stationary gaze entropy (gaze dispersion) and gaze transition entropy (sequence complexity). These findings suggest that pilots’ gaze became less complex and more focused on fewer areas of interest when task difficulty increased. Additionally, a novel approach to identify and track instances when pilots restrict their attention outside the cockpit (i.e., gaze tunneling) was explored and shown to be sensitive to changes in task difficulty. Altogether, the gaze-related metrics used in the present study provide valuable information for assessing pilots gaze behaviour and help further understand how gaze contributes to better performance in low-time pilots

Expertise in Aviation

This chapter makes the distinction between the experience of aviation professionals, often quantified in terms of hours of flight time, or flight qualifications, and expertise, as revealed by high proficiency at aviation tasks. Very high proficiency defines the expert. Challenge results because of the difficulty in measuring such proficiency, particularly beyond the student pilot level, and in air traffic control. The chapter also reviews the literature that examines the relation between experience, differences in cognitive ability, and the expertise of aviation professionals as pertains to controlling the aircraft, navigating, and communicating, as well as pertains to non-technical skills manifest by both pilots and air traffic controllers: situation awareness, decision making, task management and crew resource management. It is concluded that experience is only loosely coupled with proficiency in these areas

Explaining Self-Motion Perception using Virtual Reality in Patients with Ocular Disease

Safe mobility requires accurate object and self-motion perception. This involves processing retinal motion generated by optic flow (which change with eye and head movements) and correctly integrating this with vestibular and proprioceptive cues. Poor sensory feedback of self-motion can lead to increased risks of accidents which impacts quality of life. This is further problematic for those with visual deficits, such as central or peripheral vision loss or impaired binocular vision. The expansion of healthcare into using virtual reality (VR) has allowed the assessment of sensory and motor performance in a safe environment. An advantage of VR is its ability to generate vection (perceived illusory self-motion) and presence (sense of being ‘there’). However, a limitation is the potential to develop cybersickness. Initially, the project examined how binocular vision influences vection in a virtual environment. Observers with or without stereopsis (ability to judge depth binocularly) were asked to compare their perceptual experiences based on psychophysical judgements of magnitude estimation. The findings suggest that the absence of stereopsis impairs accurate judgement of self-motion and reduces perceived presence, however, it was protective for cybersickness. The project then examined the impact of central and peripheral vision loss on self-motion perception by comparing those with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and glaucoma respectively. Effects of these visual deficits on sensory conflicts involving visual-vestibular interactions was then assessed. Sensory conflict was imposed by altering the gain of simulated head linear head position and angular orientation to be either compatible or incompatible with head movement in two separate experiments. Fixation was used to control gaze during changes in angular head orientation. Vection and presence was higher in those with AMD, compared with those with glaucoma, indicating the importance of regional specificity in visual deficits on self-motion perception. Across studies, vection and presence were predominantly visually mediated despite changes in visual-vestibular sensory conflict. The vestibular system, however, appeared to play a larger role in developing cybersickness. The altered perception of self-motion may worsen mobility, particularly with disease progression. We therefore provide a framework and recommendations for a multidisciplinary patient-centric model of care to maximise quality of life