Flight Experience and Mental Representations of Space

ABSTRACTObjective: This study investigated whether increased flight experience as a pilot was associated with improved small-scale spatial skills and the ability to form a cognitive map of a novel ground-based virtual environment.Background: Early-career civil aviation pilots have been shown to form more accurate cognitive maps of a novel virtual environment than nonpilots. We sought to extend this finding to determine whether cognitive map accuracy was also associated with pilot flight experience.Method: Pilots completed small-scale spatial ability tasks, including assessments of perspective taking and spatial working memory, and then traveled along 4 routes in a virtual environment. Subsequently, they completed 2 tests that assessed their memory for the layout of landmarks in the virtual environment.Results: Pilots with more flight experience did not have more accurate cognitive map representations of the environment than pilots with less flight experience; however, increased flying experience was associated with better performance on a perspective-taking test.Conclusion: Perspective taking has been proposed as central to navigation awareness during flight, and the data reported here suggest it improves with experience.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1080/24721840.2018.1544462
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/24721840
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 2018. Abstract reprinted with permission of Taylor & Francis.
• Authors:
  • Keller, Mikayla
  • Sutton, Jennifer E.
• Publication Date: 2018-10

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 76-83
• Serial:
  • The International Journal of Aerospace Psychology
  • Volume: 28
  • Issue Number: 3-4
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISSN: 2472-1840
  • Serial URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hiap21/current

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Airline pilots; Civil aviation; Cognition
• Uncontrolled Terms: Cognitive maps (Psychology); Mental representation; Pilot experience; Spatial ability
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Aviation; Education and Training; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01696502
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Feb 27 2019 9:40AM