Well...be out of the office one day and look what happens. It seems I have
had a greater contribution to the debate than when I'm here, thanks Doug.
The IP/PCT model is a model of human information processing. From this model
we argue that human performance is determined from the management of time,
knowledge and attention. The attentional component determines which loops are
being controlled in any time slice. Loops controlled are loops that learn
(gaining SA). Decisions are based on our state of relevant knowledge. Being
able to attend to many things requires us to time multiplex (i.e., shift
attention from loop to loop). However, unless the loop has a really long time
constant we can't switch attention until we see that the current goal has been
achieved. So the simplest way to rapid goal achievement is to be really
skilled (this means we have an highly representative mental model that
resolves almost 100% of the error variance the first time around the loop).
The better the knowledge is the less information has to be processed and the
faster is goal achievement. This frees up the time line so more things can be
attended to.
I think people who are focusing on one thing are processing lots of
information...until such time that they achieve the goal they set for
themselves, they can't move on. Interestingly we have some experimental data
that suggests that this is really what is happening in those who are bad at
video type games (in this case Tetris). The really 'good' performers are fast
serial processors with risky strategies. They are prepared to make lots of
mistakes (but also score highly). The low performers seem intent on making
the fewest mistakes but sacrifice throughput.
So is this trainable. Absolutely. In the first instance become very good at
the technical skills and learn satisficing strategies (don't control to 10'
when 50' is good enough). But are there generic attention switching skills
such as might be gained by mental arithmetic etc? I'm not convinced. Many
years ago I had to average long columes of data. I chose to do this manually
as the only calculators we had back then (don't go there :-) were mechanical.
I became very good at it. I suspect that my speed came from not cross
checking at the conscious level. I was just able to run down the column and
get the right answer (I did check in the other direction). At the same time I
was learning to fly for the first time (got to 30 hours, crashed the car, got
married you know the story). 10 years later on, after my number adding skill
had long since gone, I took up flying again (it came easier this time) and
became qute a reasonable rally driver. I don't think my number adding skills
where relevant to either activity.
As I said to Doug in an email a week or so ago, I feel I achieved reasonable
skill levels in aeroplanes, cars and racing boats (I can time share and do
many things in a short period of time in these environments), but put me on a
rock face, a black diamond ski hill, or in a failed parachute, and I will
revert to single channel focused attention (because I don't have the knowledge
to do these things at the skill based level, I would be back to Rasmussens
rule and knowledge based behaviours). I suspect being able to compute the sum
of squares wont help much either :-)
Cheers
Keith
--------------------------------------
Dick Jensen wrote.
I've got a question for the group that has a different twist. I have heard,
read, and taught my students that focus of attention is important in
aviation. It was found to be the single best predictor of combat pilot
performance in Israel (Gopher and Kahneman, 1971). Many are still using it
in research using dichotic listening and visual tasks, as seen in the
Symposium presentations. I think that it is at the heart of attitude
management and judgment in civil aviation. Recently, I have been looking at
the ag pilot safety problem and listening to them talk, focus of attention
is one of their hardest tasks, especially when under fatigue or pressure
from economic, personal, environmental, or business sources.
Can someone tell me how to teach pilots to control or focus their attention?
Also, can someone tell me how to test for attention control in a LOFT, LOS,
or MOST scenario that is realistic to flight. I have challenged my students
to this task but was wondering if any one out there can help us.
By the way, all of the 9th Symposium proceedings (both hard copy and CD
versions) have now been mailed to those who have paid for them. If you have
not received yours, please let me know. Overseas people may need yet to wait
some time for hard copies.
Finally, mark your calendars for the 10th Symposium on Aviation Psychology
-- May 2-7, 1999. The call for papers will go out in July this year.
Dick Jensen