Abstract
The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between expertise, performance, and gaze behavior in a complex error-detection cockpit task. Twenty-four pilots and 26 non-pilots viewed video-clips from a pilot’s viewpoint and were asked to detect malfunctions in the cockpit instrument panel. Compared to non-pilots, pilots detected more malfunctioning instruments, had shorter dwell times on the instruments, made more transitions, visited task-relevant areas more often, and dwelled longer on the areas between the instruments. These results provide evidence for three theories that explain underlying processes for expert performance: The long-term working memory theory, the information-reduction hypothesis, and the holistic model of image perception. In addition, the results for generic attentional skills indicated a higher capability to switch between global and local information processing in pilots compared to non-pilots. Taken together, the results suggest that gaze behavior as well as other generic skills may provide important information concerning underlying processes that can explain successful performance during flight in expert pilots.
Highlights
The relationship between perceptual-cognitive skills and human expert performance has been of interest in various domains
A higher performance index was observed for the pilot group compared to the non-pilot group (t(1,48) = 4.22, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.20)
Differences in gaze behavior and visual scanning were analyzed between both pilots versus non-pilots, as well as between high versus low performers
Summary
The relationship between perceptual-cognitive skills and human expert performance has been of interest in various domains (e.g., sports [1, 2], surgery [3], driving [4]). The specific “gaze behavior”–the purposeful use of the visual system to extract relevant information from the environment in order to produce an optimal action associated with a specific task–is expected to differ between experts and lessexpert performers or between high and low performing individuals (within a specific domain of expertise). Such differences were reported in aviation [7, 8], police shooting [9], sports [10, 11] and surgery [12]
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