Browsing by Author "Clewley, Richard"
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Item Open Access Automation transparency and the design of intelligent aircraft engine interfaces(BCS Learning and Development Ltd., 2022-07-13) Nixon, Jim; Clewley, Richard; Rukasha, TendaiIn this article we report progress on a programme of research to implement intelligent engine systems in civil aircraft. Modern turbofan engines capture data about their performance and health during flight. Until now, this information has remained hidden from the flight deck. Our research will examine how best to communicate these new information sources to the flight deck to deliver intelligent assistance in understanding engine health and offering choices to minimise disruption should an engine develop a fault that affects performance. We have adopted automation transparency as a key design pillar to ensure that flight crew have an appropriate understanding of the reasoning of the intelligent system under different operating conditions. User-centred design will inform the degree to which the different interface elements are transparent, informing the balance between the provision of information necessary to ensure safe and efficient performance. Currently, there is significant uncertainty as to whether automation transparency can confer a performance advantage in all cases. Our research will empirically investigate different levels of automation transparency to validate performance.Item Open Access Event prototypes in airline transport operations(Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors, 2016-04-21) Clewley, Richard; Nixon, JimEvidence from accident reports indicate that pilots are not always able to categorise events in real-time, which can lead to delayed or inappropriate response. The prototype view proposes that category judgements are influenced by the clearest and best cases of category membership. Flight crew may not always experience events and situations in their prototypical forms. We outline future research on event prototypes in airline transport operations in order to develop better explanations of event judgements amongst flight crew.Item Open Access A new facet of category theory: cognitive disadvantage and its implications for safety in the cockpit(Taylor and Francis, 2022-09-28) Clewley, Richard; Nixon, JimThe typicality effect suggests typical category members provide a cognitive advantage, such as being quicker and easier to recognise and describe. The reverse effect has not been explored in an applied environment. Non-typical flight safety events appear to pose problems for pilots, leading to delayed recognition and ineffective use of checklists. Fifty-six airline pilots completed an experiment that tested a real-world typicality gradient, comparing pilot performance on a group of four non-typical events against four randomly selected events. Non-typical flight safety events elicited a greater number of response errors and a greater response latency when compared with a random selection of safety events. We specify and measure cognitive disadvantage and suggest innovations in pilot education, such as locating troublesome events and improving recognition guidance. Our new findings can be used to better prepare pilots for event diversity and inform safety in other work systems of interest to ergonomics.Item Open Access Now you see it, now you don’t: dynamism amplifies the typicality effect(Springer, 2021-10-07) Clewley, Richard; Nixon, JimSome safety events do not stabilise in a coherent state, presenting with transient or intermittent features. Such dynamism may pose problems for human performance, especially if combined with non-typical stimuli that are rarely encountered in everyday work. This may explain undesirable pilot behaviour and could be an important cognitive factor in recent aircraft accidents. Sixty-five airline pilots tested a real-world typicality gradient, composed of two cockpit events, a typical event, and a non-typical event, across two different forms of dynamism, a stable, single system transition, and an unstable, intermittent system transition. We found that non-typical event stimuli elicited a greater number of response errors and incurred an increased response latency when compared to typical event stimuli, replicating the typicality effect. These performance deteriorations were amplified when a form of unstable system dynamism was introduced. Typical stimuli were unaffected by dynamism. This indicates that dynamic, non-typical events are problematic for pilots and may lead to poor event recognition and response. Typical is advantageous, even if dynamic. Manufacturers and airlines should evolve pilot training and crew procedures to take account of variety in event dynamics.Item Open Access Understanding pilot response to flight safety events using categorisation theory(Taylor & Francis, 2019-02-27) Clewley, Richard; Nixon, JimCategorisation theory explains our ability to recognise events in terms of a similarity overlap between either a prototypical, ideal case or a stored exemplar derived from experience. Evidence from aviation accident reports indicate that pilots are not always able to recognise flight safety events in real-time and this can lead to undesirable pilot behaviour. Flight safety events may not always arise in recognisable formats, especially as rare and unusual cue combinations are possible. Correspondence with prototypes or exemplars may be weak, creating borderline cases and harming recognition. In this article we extend categorisation theory to develop a new framework which characterises flight safety events. We model three case studies using the new framework to demonstrate how categorisation theory can be used to understand flight safety events of different types. Finally, we propose a roadmap for future research and discuss how categorisation theory could be applied to training or the organisation of flight crew reference material to improve response to inflight events