Red Alert: a cognitive countermeasure to mitigate attentional tunneling

Attentional tunneling, that is the inability to detect unexpected changes in the environment, has been shown to have critical consequences in air traffic control. The motivation of this study was to assess the design of a cognitive countermeasure dedicated to mitigate such failure of attention. The Red Alert cognitive countermeasure relies on a brief orange-red flash (300 ms) that masks the entire screen with a 15% opacity. Twenty-two air traffic controllers faced two demanding scenarios, with or without the cognitive countermeasure. The volunteers were not told about the Red Alert so as to assess the intuitiveness of the design without prior knowledge. Behavioral results indicated that the cognitive countermeasure reduced reaction time and improved the detection of the notification when compared to the classical operational design. Further analyses showed this effect was even stronger for half of our participants (91.7% detection rate) who intuitively understood the purpose of this design

A parsimonious oscillatory model of handwriting

International audienceWe propose an oscillatory model that is theoretically parsimonious, empirically efficient and biologically plausible. Building on Hollerbach’s (Biol Cybern 39:139–156, 1981) model, our Parsimonious Oscillatory Model of Handwriting (POMH) overcomes the latter’s main shortcomings by making it possible to extract its parameters from the trace itself and by reinstating symmetry between the x and y coordinates. The benefit is a capacity to autonomously generate a smooth continuous trace that reproduces the dynamics of the handwriting movements through an extremely sparse model, whose efficiency matches that of other, more computationally expensive optimizing methods. Moreover, the model applies to 2D trajectories, irrespective of their shape, size, orientation and length. It is also independent of the endeffectors mobilized and of the writing direction

Influence de la présentation des mots pour des lecteurs dyslexiques

International audienceIn this article, we present an experiment to measuring the effect of three ways of presenting words on reading performance. Twelve non- dyslexic subjects and eight dyslexic subjects participated in this experiment. We have shown that a form of presentation of words, among the three, brought better reading results for dyslexic subjects.Dans cet article, nous présentons une expérimentation de mesure de l'effet de trois formes de présentation des mots sur les performances de lecture. Douze sujets non dyslexiques et huit sujets dyslexiques ont participé à cette expérience. Nous avons pu montrer qu'une forme de présentation des mots, parmi les trois, amenait de meilleurs résultats de lecture pour les sujets dyslexiques

The Use of the Dynamic Solution Space to Assess Air Traffic Controller Workload

Air traffic capacity is mainly bound by air traffic controller workload. In order to effectively find solutions for this problem, off-line pre-experimental workload assessment methods are desirable. In order to better understand the workload associated with air traffic control, previous research introduced the static Solution Space as a possible workload metric. The Solution Space Diagram is a mapping of intruding aircraft trajectories to the velocity/heading plane in the form of Conflict Zones and safe areas. Choosing a velocity vector in either one will provide an unsafe or a safe solution, respectively. In this paper an improved, dynamic Solution Space will be tested for correlations with air traffic controller workload, measured experimentally. A two dimensional experiment has been conducted, where subjects were required to line up all aircraft in a sector towards a certain waypoint, while continuously providing subjective workload ratings. High correlations were found between several Solution Space parameters and the subjective workload. Even though a conventional workload metric shows also to be highly correlated to the measured workload, the Solution Space could be the scenario independent workload metric that is currently missing in air traffic controller workload determination.Control & OperationsAerospace Engineerin

Analysis of Air Traffic Controller Workload Reduction Based on the Solution Space for the Merging Task

Air traffic controller workload is considered to be an important limiting factor to the growth of air traffic. The difficulty of an air traffic control task can be analyzed through examining the problem’s solution space, that is, all possible vector commands that satisfy the constraints of safety, productivity and efficiency. But apart from deriving metrics for workload, a visualization based on the solution space, resulting in the Solution Space Diagram, could help the controller inmanaging the air traffic. An experiment was conducted in which two different levels of traffic density were tested in order to evaluate the effects of presenting the Solution Space Diagram on controller workload. The experiment entailed the task of merging aircraft into a single route and subjects provided subjective ratings of workload at fixed intervals of time. Depending on traffic level and subject experience, significant effects of the Solution Space Diagram were found on the reduction of controller workload.Control & OperationsAerospace Engineerin