Short-Term Memory Factors in Ground Controller/Pilot Communication

Abstract

Communication between ground controllers and pilots was simulated in a short-term memory task in order to explore sources of memory errors in the air traffic control system. As expected from prior short-term memory research, two major determinants of error probability were (1) amount of information that the pilot has to process in a given time and (2) retention interval between the time information is transmitted from the controller and the time it is acted on (recalled) by the pilot. Additionally, the manner of encoding numerical information was varied. The result of this manipulation indicated that, as suggested by recent research in cognitive psychology, the current information-encoding scheme has substantial room for improvement in terms of minimizing memory failure.