Geographic Knowledge Acquisition Promoted by Map Study and Rehearsal Flight Methods

Abstract

Three methods of pre-flight navigational preparation were evaluated, to address problems of geographic disorientation. Thirty pilots either 'actively' flew a rehearsal of an upcoming flight, 'passively' watched a replay of an active rehearsal, or participated in a map study session in order to 'learn' a low level navigation route and the surrounding region. Following training, subjects were then asked to navigate along the previously learned route in a high fidelity simulator, which depicted environmental aspects of a 'real' flight. The results indicated that the spatial resource demands of active flight control while navigating in the training condition overburdened any potential learning benefits of 'seeing' the training environment. The route and survey knowledge acquired in the active training condition were significantly poorer than the knowledge acquired in map study and somewhat inferior to that acquired by the passive group. All groups had equal difficulty applying survey knowledge to an unrehearsed and unexpected navigation task.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1994
Accession Number
ADA281828

Entities

People

  • Scott T. Hutchinson

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Altitude
  • Computer Programs
  • Coordinate Systems
  • Flight Instruments
  • Flight Simulations
  • Flight Simulators
  • Geographic Regions
  • Measurement
  • Navigation
  • Navigational Equipment
  • Psychology
  • Simulators
  • Situational Awareness
  • Three Dimensional

Readers

  • Aviation Science / Aeronautics.
  • Brain and Cognitive Science; Experimental Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Systems Analysis and Design