One of the highlights of this week’s readings was the aspect of coherence (Salas & Maurino, 2010). For coherence to be effective, pilots need to have a deep understanding of the underlying logic, systems and automation impacts. The cognitive load has grown significantly over the years and continues to grow even faster today. While it is possible to acquire and display a lot more data in the form of meaningful information on extra-rich customizable displays, an important consideration would be to understand at what point this reaches practical human limits.

In the end, there is no limit on information that can be provided or assimilated by the crew. What matters is how much can be meaningfully assimilated in limited amounts of time (many times minutes or seconds) and most importantly, acted upon to achieve an outcome.

Information overload occurs frequently and very rapidly. My observation is that a few different visual and aural call-outs occurring simultaneously (example: a GPWS callout and a TCAS alert) are enough to cause overload in an otherwise quiet flightdeck. If they occur to be in conflict its worse.

With rising stress levels, saturation occurs faster (Salas & Maurino, 2010).  The ability to filter, and hone in, on important elements of information being presented is the answer to avoiding overwhelm. I believe that this ability is a function of two things – a) experience and b) personality.

CJ

References

Salas, E. & Maurino, D. (2010). Human Factors in Aviation (2nd Ed.). New York: Academic Press.