Developing an Improved ACT-R Model for Pilot Situation Awareness Measurement

Hao Chen,Liping Pang,Yufeng Fang,Shuang Liu,Xiaoru Wanyan

doi:10.1109/access.2021.3108438

Abstract

According to a previously built situation-awareness (SA) model based on attention allocation, with the ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought, Rational) theory for analyzing pilot cognitive processes for situation elements, an SA mathematical model was improved to predict pilot SA during exposure to different display interfaces and missions. An indicator-display monitoring task was performed under different experimental conditions for SA model verification, while the SA global assessment technique (SAGAT), performance measures, 10-dimensional SA rating technique (10-D SART), and eye movement measures were adopted to comprehensively assess the operator’s SA. The experimental results revealed that theoretical prediction values calculated using the improved SA model were strongly correlated with the operation performance, and thus confirming the model validation. The SAGAT was shown to be a more effective method than SART in this research, and the overall SAGAT accuracy rate, as well as the accuracy response time, are effective indices for SA measurement. Eye-movement indices, such as the fixation/saccade ratio, which corresponds to the mode of information perception and extraction, was examined to be sensitive to operator’s SA changes. The Advances of the improved SA model have been achieved in predicting and indicating SA by using human behaviors, including operation performance, SAGAT response behaviors, and visual behaviors. Thereby, it provides a new auxiliary tool for quantitative characterization of pilot’s SA during cockpit interface design optimization and ergonomic evaluation.

Highlights

The pilot–cockpit system is an example of a typical complex human-in-the-loop system
High-fidelity flight simulation experiments under different task conditions were performed for validating the model, and the results indicated that the pilot situation awareness (SA) level is sensitive to the display interface design [22]
Salmon et al compared two different SA measures during a military planning task, and the results indicated that only the participant SA scores derived via the freeze probe recall method produced a statistically significant correlation with the performance [4]

Summary

Introduction

The pilot–cockpit system is an example of a typical complex human-in-the-loop system. Whether for routine tasks or under special circumstances, the pilot must perform dynamic and repetitive processes of information perception, comprehensive judgment, and decision-making. While performing these tasks, the pilot must constantly maintain situation awareness (SA), which is one of the most important abilities for ensuring flight safety. Aviation accident investigations have indicated that 51.6% of fatal accidents and 35.1% of non-fatal accidents can be attributed to the failure of decision-making. Most of these are not a result of decision errors but SA errors [1]. Research has indicated that at a higher pilot SA level, more rapid and effective operation can be applied, which is more helpful to ensure flight safety [2,3]

Methods

Results

Conclusion