Dynamic measurement of the operator for future system development

The goal of the present study was to; measure mental workload, situations awareness (SA) and performance during an air to ground mission in simulated and real flight, compare the correlation between physiological reactions, situation awareness and perceived mental workload, and, based on these correlations, develop causal models. A goal of the study was also to further study the usefulness of the measurement methods in applied and realistic setting. Ten Air Force pilots from Wing 17 flew repeated (three times real flight, three times simulated) air to ground missions. The results show that the common variance between the psycho-physiological measures (heart rate, heart rate variability, and eye movement) is high and that the correlation between simulated and real flight is very high. This shows that the simulation induces the same reactions as real flight. Furthermore, the psychological measures (subjective ratings of workload, SA, and performance) show significant correlations with the psycho-physiological measures. Thus, we can combine these dynamic measures with the subjective ratings with high realiability and validity. The correlations between the measures have provided input to LISREL modelling. The modelling shows that the mental workload perceived by the pilots affect the psycho-physiological reaction with resulting heart rate increases during high mental load. Increases in both perceived mental workload and heart rate affect the situation awareness ratings, which in turn affect the operative performance. The developed model supports earlier findings and models. The results also show the measures used are useful and applicable in applied settings such as regular Air Force exercises, training in the Air Combat Simulation Centre (FLSC) and the Dynamic Flight Simulator (DFS).