Using Engagement to Negate Vigilance Decrements in the NextGen Environment

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the extent to which increasing engagement would negate vigilance decrements in monitoring during a realistic air traffic control monitoring task. Technological advances in aircraft and navigation may change the controller's job from directing air traffic to more of a monitoring role with supervisory control. Research shows that humans are not effective monitors and can be subject to vigilance decrements. Even though vigilance decrements have been demonstrated in some settings, it is still not known if they are likely in a future ATC monitoring role. Sixteen undergraduates from the Georgia Institute of Technology trained for 6 weeks on NextSim, a medium fidelity ATC research simulator of the NextGen environment. They then performed 4 weeks of scenarios that required monitoring of flow corridors for failures of conflict evading technology. Two levels of engagement and two levels of attentional focus while monitoring were analyzed. Participants showed a significant vigilance decrement except after extended practice in the engaged condition. The findings of this study suggest that engaging the operator may alleviate the vigilance decrement, however only after practice.