The Use of Commercial Flight Simulation Software as a Psychometrically Sound, Ecologically Valid Measure of Fatigued Performance
Abstract
Fatigue is a deadly problem for U.S. Naval Aviation (Naval Safety Center, 2006), and receives a correspondingly large amount of research attention in military RDT&E. Though the basic consequences of fatigue are well known, significant measurement challenges remain in the applied laboratory, where an optimal combination of scientific rigor and operational relevance can be elusive. The purpose of this report is twofold: 1) to describe the development and execution of a flight simulation tool for quantifying vigilance during a fatigue study, and 2) to describe the effort to balance the control and diagnosticity of the PVT with the ecological validity of flight simulation in an inexpensive, off-the-shelf, open-source format. Fifteen active duty military personnel from the Naval Aviation Preflight Indoctrination (API) program at NAS Pensacola volunteered for the study. Subjects completed a battery of neurocognitive and physiological assessments over the course of 25 hours of continual wakefulness. Significant inter-trial correlations for the Flight Simulator Performance Task (FSPT) scores were moderately strong (r = .53 - .81, p < .05), providing initial evidence for test-retest reliability. However, there were some notable non-significant correlations which are discussed in terms of significant, trait-like individual differences in the data. Preliminary evidence suggests that performance on a simple flight simulation task can be used as a reliable, ecologically valid measure of fatigue in Student Naval Aviators. Future work should focus on replication and extension of the FSPT to further establish the measure's psychometric properties.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA548034
Entities
People
- D. L. Taylor
- Dain S. Horning
- Dean S. Horak
- Jeffrey B. Phillips
- Joseph F. Chandler
- Richard D. Arnold
Organizations
- Naval Medical Research Unit Dayton