Date of Award

December 2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Dmitri Poltavski

Second Advisor

Thomas Petros

Abstract

Pilot situational awareness (SA) has been deemed to be a critical component of flight efficacy, efficiency, and overall mission success. Studies have shown that several incidents and accidents have been the result of level-one SA errors, meaning that members of the flight crew have failed to accurately perceive the elements in their environments. As such, several strategies have been investigated to improve pilot SA. One potential avenue of research is the addition of haptics in to the flight deck. In some studies, the implementation of haptics have shown to improve piloting tasks, pilot safety, and aircraft control. The current study employed haptic cueing to improve pilot situational awareness in flight, indexed by several process and performance measures. The objectives were to specifically observe the effects of haptics on flight pattern adherence, instrument scanning behaviors, and pilot cognitive state. Data was collected from 43 participants completing six instrument flight patterns of varying complexity. The results of this study indicate that the use of targeted haptic feedback can aid pilot perception, performance, and thus situational awareness during simulated flight. Most importantly, however, was that the use of haptics did not negatively impact the visual-attentional allocation or cognitive load of the pilots.

Download

Share

COinS