Explain the importance of situational awareness on different phases of flight.
Have a Lookout and a Listen Out
By maintaining a high level of situational awareness, you will know what is, where and what will be. This will allow you to paint a 3D picture of your surroundings and plan how you conduct yourself and the flight path of the aircraft.
A good pilot is always aware of their surroundings and maintains a high level of situational awareness
Define situational awareness.
This is a process of maintaining a mental model that compares with the real world situation
It includes knowing what has gone on in the past in relation to what is going on now and how all this can effect what might happen in the future
It is being aware of what is happening in the vicinity to understand how information, events, and one’s own actions will impact goals and objectives, both immediately and in the near future
Describe the formation of mental models.
A mental model is an explanation of someone’s thought process about how something works in the real world. Mental models can help shape behaviour and set an approach to solving problems (similar to a personal algorithm) and doing tasks.
Describe the effect of the following on perception ...
Expectation
It can be said that expectation determines perception.
When a person has an expectation or a ‘mind set’ he or she can may see things that line up with this expectation and not the information that does not.
This may cause visual illusion and mindsets to take place
Experience plays a large part in perception. If a person has experience with a product or a situation, their perception is somewhat biased to previous experiences and therefore build a mindset.
Define perception.
The ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses
Explain the concept of mental workload.
Good mental functioning and minimum distraction are essential in flight
Interpret flight instruments and attitude
Staying on required flight path
Explain the following methods of retaining and retrieving information from memory:
Chunking
The capacity of the short term memory can be increased by chunking which is association of related items
A method of easily retaining and retrieving information from memory
A method of retaining / retrieving information from memory
Describe the limitations and failures of memory.
The brains ability to to function well and process information depends on a number of factors. These include how accurate and complete the information is stored in the memory, how long ago it was learned or reinforced, whether the learner was preoccupied when the information was learnt and if negative circumstances or stress was a factor at the time of learning or attempted retrieval.
Despite the huge capacity of the memory of the brain, it can give its attention to only one thing at a time. It can however carry out several automated actions simultaneously, although such actions are subject to error and require periodical monitoring.
The brain is very good at switching rapidly from one task to the another; this means it can effectively divide its attention to monitor and even carry out several different activities seemingly at the same time. This is called divided attention.
Describe the following types of memory ...
This is where information is received by the senses and sorted
Images, sounds, smells etc are retained for just 1-2 seconds so we know which are needing attention before they are lost
The short term memory holds the events and information received in the recent past – up to 30 seconds
The capacity of the short term memory is limited to 7 +/- 2 unrelated items of information retained until it is over-written
Short term memory makes the decisions; information received by the senses is compared to relevant information stored in the long term memory
This information is under long term storage with a high capacity and a low rate of decay
Once stored it is never lost
Once new skills are learnt they become an automatic action and pass into the motor / skills memory
Describe a basic model of information processing, including the concepts of ...
Information enters the sensation and sensory memory where some but not all of it is processed. Important or relevant information is transferred to the short term working memory for further processing.
From this information the person is able to develop an awareness of the surrounding situation.
From this awareness the person is able to make appropriate decisions and carry out appropriate actions. All of this initial sensing and evaluation takes place in the brain’s short term memory.
To make decisions the brain uses both sensation/sensory information and related information already stored in the long term memory.
Human information is thus a continual process of receiving, sorting, comparing, deciding upon and discarding data.