Identifying the Importance of Perceptual Cycle Concepts during Critical Decision making in the Cockpit

Abstract

This paper applies a taxonomy based on the Perceptual Cycle Model (PCM) to analyse aeronautical critical decision making (ACDM) data. The PCM provides a process-oriented explanation of decision making, demonstrating how the combination of internally held mental schemata and externally available environmental information interact to produce decisions and actions. However, the PCM only provides a high level of description; previous research has developed a taxonomy based on the high level categories of schema, action and world, in order to increase the explanatory power of the PCM. The taxonomy was applied to analyse twenty ACDM interviews. Sociometric status (a metric of social network analysis) was computed for each concept to establish their relative importance when dealing with a critical incident. It is demonstrated that world-based concepts are more important than schema-based concepts for ACDM. However, limitations with the methodology may have influenced the results and these are discussed, along with potential methodological developments to enhance data collection of this nature.