Aviat Space Envir Md
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Aviat Space Envir Md · May 2007
Alcohol violations and aviation accidents: findings from the U.S. mandatory alcohol testing program.
Mandatory alcohol testing has been implemented in the U.S. aviation industry since 1995. This study documents the prevalence of alcohol violations and the association between alcohol violations and aviation accidents among aviation employees with safety-sensitive functions. ⋯ Alcohol violations among U.S. major airline employees with safety-sensitive functions are rare and play a negligible role in aviation accidents.
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Aviat Space Envir Md · May 2007
Linguistic correlates of team performance: toward a tool for monitoring team functioning during space missions.
Approaches to mitigating the likelihood of psychosocial problems during space missions emphasize preflight measures such as team training and team composition. Additionally, it may be necessary to monitor team interactions during missions for signs of interpersonal stress. The present research was conducted to identify features in team members' communications indicative of team functioning. ⋯ Analyses isolated certain task-related and social features of team communication related to team functioning. Team success was associated with the extent to which team members shared task-critical information, equally participated and built on each other's contributions, showed agreement, and positive affect.
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Aviat Space Envir Md · May 2007
ReviewAugmenting team cognition in human-automation teams performing in complex operational environments.
There is a growing reliance on automation (e.g., intelligent agents, semi-autonomous robotic systems) to effectively execute increasingly cognitively complex tasks. Successful team performance for such tasks has become even more dependent on team cognition, addressing both human-human and human-automation teams. Team cognition can be viewed as the binding mechanism that produces coordinated behavior within experienced teams, emerging from the interplay between each team member's individual cognition and team process behaviors (e.g., coordination, communication). ⋯ Toward this end, we present a preliminary theoretical framework illustrating how the design and implementation of automation technology may influence team cognition and team coordination in complex operational environments. Integrating constructs from organizational and cognitive science, our proposed framework outlines how information exchange and updating between humans and automation technology may affect lower-level (e.g., working memory) and higher-level (e.g., sense making) cognitive processes as well as teams' higher-order "metacognitive" processes (e.g., performance monitoring). Issues surrounding human-automation interaction are discussed and implications are presented within the context of designing automation technology to improve task performance in human-automation teams.
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Aviat Space Envir Md · May 2007
EEG correlates of task engagement and mental workload in vigilance, learning, and memory tasks.
The ability to continuously and unobtrusively monitor levels of task engagement and mental workload in an operational environment could be useful in identifying more accurate and efficient methods for humans to interact with technology. This information could also be used to optimize the design of safer, more efficient work environments that increase motivation and productivity. ⋯ These data in combination with previous studies suggest that EEG engagement reflects information-gathering, visual processing, and allocation of attention. EEG workload increases with increasing working memory load and during problem solving, integration of information, analytical reasoning, and may be more reflective of executive functions. Inspection of EEG on a second-by-second timescale revealed associations between workload and engagement levels when aligned with specific task events providing preliminary evidence that second-by-second classifications reflect parameters of task performance.