The Psychological Mechanisms of Pilots'Plan Continuation Errors

Xu Quan; Liu Bo; Li Shu; Ji Ming; You Xuqun

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230409

PDF(884 KB)

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2023, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (4) : 833-840. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230409

General Psychology, Experimental Psychology & Ergonomics

The Psychological Mechanisms of Pilots'Plan Continuation Errors

Xu Quan^1,2, Liu Bo^1,2, Li Shu^1,2,3, Ji Ming^1,2, You Xuqun^1,2

Author information +

History +

Abstract

Plan Continuation Errors (PCEs) is defined as the “failure to revise a flight plan despite emerging evidence that it is no longer safe”. In this paper, we reviewed the scientific literature on PCEs. PCEs usually occur in weather-related decision-making situations, manifested by pilots unintentionally or intentionally using Visual Flight Rules (VFR) to manipulate the aircraft into Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). In this case, the pilot loses the mental model and cognitive skills necessary to maintain control of the aircraft due to the lack of visual reference information to the horizon, causing catastrophic consequences. Therefore, how to identify and analyze the psychological characteristics and mechanisms of pilot PCEs is not only a frontier subject in aviation psychology research, but also a major practical problem that needs to be resolved in the current aviation safety management practice.
The underlying mechanisms of the PCEs were summarized as follows: (1)Situation assessment. This mechanism believes that PCEs is caused by pilots who are completely unaware of severe weather conditions or fail to accurately diagnose weather changes and their severity. (2) Decision-making framework. This mechanism explains PCEs on the basis of the prospect theory and the sunk cost effect, which suggests that PCEs are caused by pilots' strong expectation of reaching their destination, which changed their decision-making framework, which in turn led to their underestimation of the severity of the weather. (3) Cognitive heuristics. This mechanism believes that pilots adopt cognitive shortcuts or cognitive heuristics to solve problems for easy cognitive workload, which can easily lead to cognitive bias in pilots' weather-related decision-making process, resulting in decision error and PCEs. In addition, researchers have conducted many empirical studies to understand factors that may affect pilot PCEs. To sum up, the results mainly focus on six aspects, including flight experience, personality characteristics, emotional state, weather radar display system, flight environment, organization, and social pressure.
On the basis of the review of existing research, three future directions for this line of research were also discussed. First, previous studies have mainly explored the psychological mechanisms of pilot PCEs from three aspects: situation assessment, decision-making framework and cognitive heuristics. However, these mechanisms have not revealed the whole picture of pilot PCEs, and most of them remain in the theoretical level. Future research can try to further explore the mechanisms of PCEs from a new perspective, such as perseveration behaviors. Second, previous PCEs research mainly focused on the information processing mechanism at the perceptual level, which belongs to the low-level cognitive processing process and is unable to reveal the psychological mechanism of PCEs more deeply. Therefore, future research should explore the higher cognitive neural mechanism of PCEs and try to reveal the cause and brain mechanism of PCEs more comprehensively. Third, current PCEs intervention studies are mostly from the perspective of human-computer interaction and cockpit human factor design, and there is a lack of intervention studies on the pilots themselves. Future research can be based on the psychological mechanisms of PCEs, and further expand the prevention research of PCEs for the pilots, such as carrying out weather cue recognition training based on the situation assessment mechanism of PCEs. Furthermore, future studies are expected to explore how to prevent PCEs from motivational, emotional, and heuristic strategies based on the framing effect and cognitive heuristic mechanisms.

Key words

pilot / plan continuation errors / aviation safety / psychological mechanism

Cite this article

EndNote

Ris (Procite)

Bibtex

Download Citations

Xu Quan, Liu Bo, Li Shu, Ji Ming, You Xuqun. The Psychological Mechanisms of Pilots'Plan Continuation Errors[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2023, 46(4): 833-840 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230409

References

[1] 姬鸣. (2015). 飞行员人因失误的心理机制研究. 科学出版社..
[2] Ahlstrom, U. (2015). Weather display symbology affects pilot behavior and decision-making. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 50, 73-96.
[3] Ahlstrom U., Ohneiser O., & Caddigan E. (2016). Portable weather applications for general aviation pilots. Human Factors, 58(6), 864-885.
[4] Ahlstrom, U., & Suss, J. (2015). Change blindness in pilot perception of METAR symbology. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 46, 44-58.
[5] Aircraft Owner and Pilots Association . (2014). 23rd Joseph T. Nall report: General aviation accidents in 2011. AOPA.
[6] Allsop, J., & Gray, R. (2014). Flying under pressure: Effects of anxiety on attention and gaze behavior in aviation. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 3(2), 63-71.
[7] Baron, J. B. (2011). Pilot weather decision making and the influence of passenger pressure (Unpublished doctorial dissertation). Clemson University.
[8] Batt, R., & O'Hare, D. (2005). Pilot behaviors in the face of adverse weather: A new look at an old problem. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 76(6), 552-559.
[9] Beringer, D. B., & Ball, J. D. (2004). The effects of NEXRAD graphical data resolution and direct weather viewing on pilots' judgments of weather severity and their willingness to continue a flight. Federal Aviation Administration.
[10] Blickensderfer B. L., Guinn T. A., Lanicci J. M., Ortiz Y., King J. M., Thomas R. L., & DeFilippis N. (2020). Interpretability of aviation weather information displays for general aviation. Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance, 91(4), 318-325.
[11] Bourgeon L., Valot C., & Navarro C. (2013). Communication and flexibility in aircrews facing unexpected and risky situations. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 23(4), 289-305.
[12] Bourgeon L., Valot C., Vacher A., & Navarro C. (2011). Study of perseveration behaviors in military aeronautical accidents and incidents: Analysis of Plan Continuation Errors. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 55(1), 1730-1734.
[13] Causse M., Baracat B., Pastor J., & Dehais F. (2011). Reward and uncertainty favor risky decision-making in pilots: Evidence from cardiovascular and oculometric measurements. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 36(4), 231-242.
[14] Causse M., Dehais F., & Pastor J. (2011). Executive functions and pilot characteristics predict flight simulator performance in general aviation pilots. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 21(3), 217-234.
[15] Causse M., Péran P., Dehais F., Caravasso C. F., Zeffiro T., Sabatini U., & Pastor J. (2013). Affective decision making under uncertainty during a plausible aviation task: An fMRI study. NeuroImage, 71, 19-29.
[16] Coyne J. T., Baldwin C. L., & Latorella K. A. (2008). Pilot weather assessment: Implications for visual flight rules flight into instrument meteorological conditions. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 18(2), 153-166.
[17] Dehais F., Causse M., Vachon F., & Tremblay S. (2012). Cognitive conflict in human-automation interactions: A psychophysiological study. Applied Ergonomics, 43(3), 588-595.
[18] Dehais F., Hodgetts H. M., Causse M., Behrend J., Durantin G., & Tremblay S. (2019). Momentary lapse of control: A cognitive continuum approach to understanding and mitigating perseveration in human error. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 100, 252-262.
[19] Endsley, M. R. (1995). Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors, 37(1), 32-64.
[20] Fultz, A. J., & Ashley, W. S. (2016). Fatal weather-related general aviation accidents in the United States. Physical Geography, 37(5), 291-312.
[21] Gigerenzer, G., & Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Heuristic decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 451-482.
[22] Goh, J., & Wiegmann, D. A. (2001). Visual flight rules flight into instrument meteorological conditions: An empirical investigation of the possible causes. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 11(4), 359-379.
[23] Goh, J., & Wiegmann, D. (2002). Human factors analysis of accidents involving visual flight rules flight into adverse weather. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 73(8), 817-822.
[24] Hua L., Ling C., & Thomas R. (2019). Timestamp representative of weather radar images in the cockpit. The International Journal of Aerospace Psychology, 29(3-4), 86-97.
[25] Ison, D. (2014). Correlates of continued visual flight rules (VFR) into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) general aviation accidents. Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education and Research, 24(1), 1-26.
[26] Johnson, C. M., & Wiegmann, D. A. (2015). VFR into IMC: Using simulation to improve weather-related decision-making. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 25(2), 63-76.
[27] LeClerc, J., & Joslyn, S. (2015). The cry wolf effect and weather-related decision making. Risk Analysis, 35(3), 385-395.
[28] Lehmann P. H., Jones M., & Höfinger M. (2017). Impact of turbulence and degraded visual environment on pilot workload. CEAS Aeronautical Journal, 8(3), 413-428.
[29] Madhavan, P., & Lacson, F. C. (2006). Psychological factors affecting pilots' decisions to navigate in deteriorating weather. North American Journal of Psychology, 8(1), 47-62.
[30] O'Hare, D., & Smitheram, T. (1995). 'Pressing on' into deteriorating conditions: An application of behavioral decision theory to pilot decision making. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 5(4), 351-370.
[31] Pauley K., O'Hare D., & Wiggins M. (2008). Risk tolerance and pilot involvement in hazardous events and flight into adverse weather. Journal of Safety Research, 39(4), 403-411.
[32] Pauley K. A., O'Hare D., Mullen N. W., & Wiggins M. (2008). Implicit perceptions of risk and anxiety and pilot involvement in hazardous events. Human Factors, 50(5), 723-733.
[33] Stanton N. A., Plant K. L., Roberts A. P., Allison C. K., & Howell M. (2020). Seeing through the mist: An evaluation of an iteratively designed head-up display, using a simulated degraded visual environment, to facilitate rotary-wing pilot situation awareness and workload. Cognition, Technology and Work, 22(3), 549-563.
[34] Walmsley, S., & Gilbey, A. (2016). Cognitive biases in visual pilots' weather-related decision making. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 30(4), 532-543.
[35] Walmsley, S., & Gilbey, A. (2017). Debiasing visual pilots' weather-related decision making. Applied Ergonomics, 65, 200-208.
[36] Walmsley, S., & Gilbey, A. (2019). Understanding the past: Investigating the role of availability, outcome, and hindsight bias and close calls in visual pilots' weather-related decision making. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 33(6), 1124-1136.
[37] Walmsley, S., & Gilbey, A. (2020). Applying prospect theory to pilot weather-related decision-making: The impact of monetary and time considerations on risk taking behaviour. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 34(3), 685-698.
[38] Wiegmann D. A., Goh J., & O'Hare D. (2002). The role of situation assessment and flight experience in pilots' decisions to continue visual flight rules flight into adverse weather. Human Factors, 44(2), 189-197.
[39] Wiggins, M., & O'Hare, D. (2003). Weatherwise: Evaluation of a cue-based training approach for the recognition of deteriorating weather conditions during flight. Human Factors, 45(2), 337-345.
[40] Wiggins, M. W. (2014). Differences in situation assessments and prospective diagnoses of simulated weather radar returns amongst experienced pilots. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 44(1), 18-23.
[41] Wiggins M. W., Azar D., Hawken J., Loveday T., & Newman D. (2014). Cue-utilisation typologies and pilots' pre-flight and in-flight weather decision-making. Safety Science, 65, 118-124.
[42] Wiggins M. W., Hunter D. R., O' Hare D., & Martinussen M. (2012). Characteristics of pilots who report deliberate versus inadvertent visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions. Safety Science, 50(3), 472-477.
[43] Winter S. R., Rice S., Capps J., Trombley J., Milner M. N., Anania E. C., & Baugh B. S. (2020). An analysis of a pilot's adherence to their personal weather minimums. Safety Science, 123, Article 104576.