Proceedings of the Russian/German Workshop on Space Psychology

Based on a general cooperation agreement between the Institute of Medico-Biological Problems (IMBP) and the DLR-Institute of Aerospace Medicine (FF-ME PW) in Cologne a meeting was held at the Department of Aviation and Space Psychology (FF-ME-HAM) in Hamburg, 9-10 April 1991. The main topic of the meeting was a review of experiences, objectives, and methods of both institutes in the field of space psychology. The exchange of ideas led to the identification of mutual interests in certain areas of application and research. Emphasis has been placed on the selection and training of astronauts as well as on group behavior under confinement. The possibilities for a direct cooperation have been discussed and hopefully will result in common projects in the future

Association between person-unique individual behavior styles and the quality and reliability of operator’s professional performance

Among the prioritized objective of maintaining psychophysiological safety in extended space missions is the buildup of crew professional reliability. Reliability of operator's performance hinges as on skills level, so personal working style. The purpose of the investigation was to penetrate into the patterns of association between a person-unique individual behavior style and quality and reliability of simulated professional operator's jobs. The investigation was part of the MARS-500 experiment (RF SSC - IBMP RAS, 2010-2011) and employed 2 procedures: the well-established manual vehicle control (Pilot-1) and a new one tasking with planetary surface exploration (VIRTU). Observation of individual work styles resulted in identification of 2 fundamentally different approaches to handling the operator's duties - reliable and innovative. It is noteworthy that a separate participant adhered to one and the same style when coping with either procedure. Also, personality traits predisposing to a concrete behavior were found, which confirms the hypothesis of deep personal nature of operator's work style that reveals itself consistently and isomorphically no matter the type of important job