18th annual conference on manual control.pdf - Acgsc.org

Effects of Practice on Pilot Response Behavior
by
William H. Levison
Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc.
50 Moulton Street
Cambridge, MA 02238
Proceedings of the
Eighteenth Annual Conference on Manual Control
Dayton, OH
June 8-10, 1982
ABSTRACT
This study is directed toward development of an analytic
tool for the design of training procedures and for the evaluation
of trainee performance in tasks relevant to aircraft flight
management. Laboratory tracking data have been analyzed to
determine changes in "pilot-related" parameters of the optimal
control model that best correlate with practice effects. Data
from two independent studies show that, with continued practice,
subjects lower their remnant and increase their response gain.
These effects can be accounted for primarily by a reduction of
the observation noise/signal ratio and, to a lesser extent, by a
reduction of the motor time constant. Preliminary analysis
suggests that, in part, the apparent practice-related change in
motor time constant may reflect a relative insensitivity of
performance to piloting strategy early in training when pilot
noise levels are high, rather than a change in response bandwidth
capabilities.
INTRODUCTION
This study has been directed toward the development of an
analytic tool for the design of training procedures and the
aSsessment of trainee performance in the kinds of monitoring,
decision, and Control tasks required for aircraft flight
management. A more specific goal is to extend the optimal
control model (OCM) of pilot/vehicle systems [1,2] into a
predictive tool that relates the acquisition of continuous
estimation and control strategies to the perceptual cueing
environment. The first phase of this effort, the results of
which are summarized in this paper, has been to analyze existing
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