An Attentive Blank Stare Under Simulator-induced Spatial Disorientation Events

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the effect of the spatial disorientation (SD) events on an attentive blank stare in the cockpit scene and demonstrated how much the flight task and visual delayed discrimination task were competing for the pilots' attention. BACKGROUND: SD in flight is the leading cause of human error-related aircraft accidents in the military, general and commercial aviation, and has been an unsolved problem since the inception of flight. In-flight safety research, visually scanning cockpit instruments, and detecting changes are critical countermeasures against SD. METHOD: Thirty male military pilots were performing a dual task involving piloting a flight simulator and visual change detection, while eye movements were obtained using an eye tracker. RESULTS: Pilots made more flight errors and spent less time gazing at the area of change in SD-conflict than in non-conflict flights. The vestibular origin SD-conflict led not only to deteriorated piloting and visual scanning but also to problems coordinating overt and covert attention, resulting in lower noticeability of visual changes despite gazing at them. CONCLUSION: Our study shows that looking at a given area in space is not a sufficient condition for effective covert attention allocation and the correct response to a visual stimulus. It seems to be important to make pilots aware of this during SD training. APPLICATION: To reduce change blindness, some strategies, such as reducing the number of secondary tasks is extremely valuable. Particular efforts should also be focused on improving the design of the aircraft cockpit by increasing the conspicuousness of critical information.