Cockpit Task Management and Task Prioritization in a VR Flight Environment: A Pilot Study on the Stability-Flexibility Dilemma

Abstract: Managing complex aircraft control and military tasks simultaneously in flight missions places substantial cognitive demands on pilots. To handle this challenge within the constraints of limited cognitive resources, pilots often employ cockpit task management strategies, such as task prioritization. Cognitive control plays a pivotal role in this process, as it entails directing attention toward relevant tasks while simultaneously filtering out distractions without missing safety-relevant information. The present paper relates these requirements to the stability-flexibility-dilemma of cognitive control. Different performance-related advantages and disadvantages are associated with the stability-flexibility dilemma in multitasking scenarios. On the one hand, cognitive stability is related to improved goal shielding, which in turn is associated with aggravated task switches. On the other hand, cognitive flexibility is linked to facilitated task switching but is also correlated with an increased likelihood of distraction by irrelevant cues. While the stability-flexibility-dilemma has already been investigated via task prioritization in a low-fidelity flight simulator, it remains to be explored in a more real-world flight environment. The presented study simulates a reconnaissance mission with eleven participants in a virtual-reality flight environment. Environmental factors such as weather conditions (non-windy or windy) and hostility levels (low or high) are systematically varied to manipulate task prioritization behavior. The effects of this manipulation on flight performance, workload, and eye-tracking metrics are statistically analyzed with a Bayesian repeated measures ANOVA. Results provide insight into how weather and hostility influence the cognitive control mode via task prioritization in near-realistic flight missions. Implications for the design of future studies are discussed.

Keywords: virtual-reality, multitasking, aviation, reconnaissance mission, stability-flexibility-dilemma, workload

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004442

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