Abstract
It is not clear what elements best “protect” performance from the degrading influences of stress, or how they interact. The experiment reported here examined the effects of trait anxiety and expertise on stressed aeronautical decision making (ADM) performance in a flight simulation task. Novice and expert pilots were administered a battery of cognitive tests, personality tests, and a flight simulation task under stressed and nonstressed conditions. Both groups showed a significant decrement in performance under stress in the non-domain-specific tasks. However, this was not reflected in any performance decrement in ADM under stress by experienced pilots. Only novice pilots made poorer decisions under stress. Measures of knowledge representation were very predictive of proficient ADM under stress. In contrast, trait anxiety scores (equal for both groups) were associated with poorer ADM only in the novice group. Highly trait-anxious experts showed no performance decrements in ADM under stress.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
