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Critical angle of attack (AOA) and stall. A stall is an aerodynamic condition that occurs when smooth airflow over the airplane's wings is disrupted, resulting in loss of lift. Stalls occur when the AOA reaches the critical point which can vary between 16 and 20. Adapted from Airplane flying handbook FAA-H-8083-3B (United States Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, Airman Testing Standards Branch 2016) (available online for educational use).
Source publication
A great challenge for cognitive neuroscience is studying human behavior in its complexity as it manifests in the real world. The field of aviation provides a unique opportunity to investigate how perception, action and cognition interact in complex yet controlled ecologically valid environments. We suggest a novel cross-domain approach that combine...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... 2009, Air France Flight 447 crashed after a high altitude aerodynamic stall caused by an excessive airplane pitch or angle of attack (AOA) (Figure 4). Analysis showed a series of circumstances that finally led to the accident -spatial disorientation of pilots, lack of situational awareness about the ongoing stall and general confusion due to the cascade of warnings that sounded in the ...
Context 2
... 2009, Air France Flight 447 crashed after a high altitude aerodynamic stall caused by an excessive airplane pitch or angle of attack (AOA) (Figure 4). Analysis showed a series of circumstances that finally led to the accident -spatial disorientation of pilots, lack of situational awareness about the ongoing stall and general confusion due to the cascade of warnings that sounded in the ...
Citations
... The design of various aircraft components, including cockpits and passenger seats, can be considered as such [3][4][5]. Numerous studies have also been con-ducted on the wellbeing and performance of various flight personals [6,7]. In addition, there has been a lot of interest in air traffic controllers and their profession which is to manage air traffic [8,9]. ...
... The goal of the current study is to create an initial prototype of a workstation in a space vehicle with Table 1 Ergonomic analysis of the prototype 1 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 Mean Age 2 42 31 27 22 22 30 31 27 34 31 29.7 Height 3 170 179 183 175 180 172 174 168 160 180 174 Mental workload 4 5 1 2 1 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 . 2 Usability 5 80 86 87 85 85 92 84 84 83 85 85.1 Physical exertion 6 11 12 9 9 12 12 13 13 13 10 11.4 1 : Participant, 2 : Year, 3 : Centimeter, 4 : from 1 to 10, 5 : from 0 to 100, 6 : from 6 to 20. ...
Background:
The aviation industry is a complex socio-technical system that has various parts which can be optimized by human factors and ergonomics.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to provide insight into the collaborative ergonomic design process for an astronaut workstation within a small spaceship.
Methods:
Having defined the project goals and other quantitative information such as anthropometric dimensions, the Catia software was then used for 3D modeling. Following the initial modeling, the RULA method was used to conduct the initial ergonomic analysis. Following the creation of a simple product prototype, other ergonomic analyses such as mental workload, perceived physical exertion, and usability were carried out.
Results:
The results of the preliminary ergonomic analysis indicated that the RULA score was acceptable (the final scores were 2 and 3 for the nearest and the farthest controls). Furthermore, the secondary ergonomic analyses were all satisfactory. The mental workload, SUS, and Borg scores for Bedford were, respectively, 2.2, 85.1, and 11.4.
Conclusion:
The proposed product initially received an acceptable ergonomic store; nevertheless, in order to continue producing this product, ergonomic concerns must be taken into consideration.
... In accordance with FAA-H-8083-3B Airplane Flying Handbook, the stalls occur when the AoA reaches to the value between 16° and 20° depending on the aircraft's design [22]. As it is depicted in Figure 4, to prevent an unintended stall, pushing the nose down is essential for regaining the speed [23]. ...
In the aviation history, there are many remarkable accidents. But rare of them are close to each other with the same types of aircraft. Basically, incidents are categorized as the Controlled Flight into the Terrain (CFIT) accidents and Loss-of-Control (LOC) in-flight accidents. For preventing these accidents, the training system and certification methodology are designed meticulously. Recovering from emergencies is the most important part of the Air Transport Pilot License (ATPL) and during their tough training period, the cadets are trained primarily against adverse situations. However, there are some iconic fatal accidents that we have information regarding pilots' unawareness of the adverse situation. From crash investigation reports, it might be thought that these accidents are originated from Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).
... Uncovering the neural substrates of scene expertise has both theoretical and applied advantages. First, understanding how the brain gives rise to proficiency in complex scene understanding can provide critical insights into the nature of mechanisms involved in it and provide constraints on theories of expertise acquisition [4][5]. Second, neural markers of scene analysis can be used as implicit measures of learning benchmarks (i.e., novice, proficient, expert) [5][6]. ...
... First, understanding how the brain gives rise to proficiency in complex scene understanding can provide critical insights into the nature of mechanisms involved in it and provide constraints on theories of expertise acquisition [4][5]. Second, neural markers of scene analysis can be used as implicit measures of learning benchmarks (i.e., novice, proficient, expert) [5][6]. Third, neuroimaging tools, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can provide diagnostic metrics to determine operational readiness as well as measures of selection and assessment [7]. ...
Visual analysis of complex real-world scenes (e.g. overhead imagery) is a skill essential to many professional domains. However, little is currently known about how this skill is formed and develops with experience. The present work adopts a neuroergonomic approach to uncover the underlying mechanisms associated with the acquisition of scene expertise, and establish neurobehavioral markers for the effectiveness of training in scene imagery analysis. We conducted an intensive six-session behavioral training study combined with multiple functional MRI scans using a large set of high-resolution color images of real-world scenes varying in their viewpoint (aerial/terrestrial) and naturalness (manmade/natural). Participants were trained to categorize the scenes at a specific-subordinate level (e.g. suspension bridge). Participants categorized the same stimuli for five sessions; the sixth session consisted of a novel set of scenes. Following training, participants categorized the scenes faster and more accurately, reflecting memory-based improvement. Learning also generalized to novel scene images, demonstrating learning transfer, a hallmark of perceptual expertise. Critically, brain activity in scene-selective cortex across all sessions significantly correlated with learning transfer effects. Moreover, baseline activity (pre-training) was highly predictive of subsequent perceptual performance. Whole-brain activity following training indicated changes to scene- and object-selective cortex, as well as posterior-parietal cortex, suggesting potential involvement of top-down visuospatial-attentional networks. We conclude that scene-selective activity can be used to predict enhancement in perceptual performance following training in scene categorization and ultimately be used to reveal the point when trainees transition to an expert-user level, reducing costs and enhancing existing training paradigms.
... These neuro-markers may provide a potential index for flight expertise. A first key application of this approach is to utilize such neuro-markers in order to guide training and to enable expert performance (Sestito et al., 2018). These neuro-markers furthermore, can potentially quantify in an objective way the interaction between pilot and aircraft, and may ultimately be used to optimize this interaction. ...
... The actionable implication of Gibson's concept of affordances indeed, lies in the entailed property of constraints on motor units for a given task, and the possibility to utilize Mirron Neuron activity as a neurophysiologic index of motor expertise that is required in order to successfully perform a given task. Previous work illustrated how this property can be easily implemented in ecologically-inspired HMI design in the flight deck (Roesler et al., 2016) where visual properties will directly specify affordances to guide behavior in a given context, hence supporting skilled performance and fast decision-making processes (Wiggins and O'hare, 1995;Sestito et al., 2018). Overall, such perspectives on possible applications of the neuroergonomic approach in a real-world aviation realm appear promising and warrant further investigations into neuroergonomics. ...
Over the last decade, the efforts toward unraveling the complex interplay between the brain, body, and environment have set a promising line of research that utilizes neuroscience to study human performance in natural work contexts such as aviation. Thus, a relatively new discipline called neuroergonomics is holding the promise of studying the neural mechanisms underlying human performance in pursuit of both theoretical and practical insights. In this work, we utilized a neuroergonomic approach by combining insights from ecological psychology and embodied cognition to study flight expertise. Specifically, we focused on the Mirror Neuron system as a key correlate for understanding the interaction between an individual and the environment, suggesting that it can be used to index changes in the coupling of perception-action associated with skill development. In this study, we measured the EEG mu suppression as a proxy of the Mirror Neuron system in experts (pilots) and novices while performing a distance estimation task in a landing scenario. To survey the specificity of this measure, we considered central, parietal and occipital electrode pools and analyzed alpha (8–13 Hz) and beta (18–25 Hz) rhythm bands. We hypothesized that in experts vs. novices, specific neural sensorimotor brain activity would underpin the connection between perception and action in an in-flight context. Preliminary results indicate that alpha and beta rhythm suppression was area-specific irrespective of groups, present in the central electrodes placed over the motor areas. Group analysis revealed that specifically alpha mu rhythm, but not beta, was significantly more suppressed in pilots vs. novices. Complementing these findings we found a trend in which the strength of mu suppression increased with the sense of presence experienced by the pilots. Such sensorimotor activation is in line with the idea that for a pilot, a distance judgment is intimately associated with the function of landing. This reflects the ability to use optical invariants to see the world in terms of the capabilities of the aircraft (e.g., reachability and glide angle). These preliminary findings support the role of embodied simulation mechanisms in visual perception and add important insights into a practical understanding of flight expertise, suggesting sensorimotor mechanisms as potential neuro-markers.
Scene perception and spatial navigation are interdependent cognitive functions, and there is increasing evidence that cortical areas that process perceptual scene properties also carry information about the potential for navigation in the environment (navigational affordances). However, the temporal stages by which visual information is transformed into navigationally relevant information are not yet known. We hypothesized that navigational affordances are encoded during perceptual processing and therefore should modulate early visually evoked ERPs, especially the scene-selective P2 component. To test this idea, we recorded ERPs from participants while they passively viewed computer-generated room scenes matched in visual complexity. By simply changing the number of doors (no doors, 1 door, 2 doors, 3 doors), we were able to systematically vary the number of pathways that afford movement in the local environment, while keeping the overall size and shape of the environment constant. We found that rooms with no doors evoked a higher P2 response than rooms with three doors, consistent with prior research reporting higher P2 amplitude to closed relative to open scenes. Moreover, we found P2 amplitude scaled linearly with the number of doors in the scenes. Navigability effects on the ERP waveform were also observed in a multivariate analysis, which showed significant decoding of the number of doors and their location at earlier time windows. Together, our results suggest that navigational affordances are represented in the early stages of scene perception. This complements research showing that the occipital place area automatically encodes the structure of navigable space and strengthens the link between scene perception and navigation.
