Cognition in the Automated Cockpit: A Coherence Perspective:

Much of the focus of papers in this symposium has been on using cues in the decision-making environment, input from relevant sources, and knowledge from past experience to assess current situations and make decisions. The cognitive processes inherent in these tasks are critical to success in the aviation environment; however, attention must also be paid to the cognitive requirements for effective diagnosis and decision making within the automated cockpit. Most importantly, in terms of theoretical and practical implications, the sophistication of automated systems in the cockpit means that pilots have access to highly reliable and accurate information (rather than probabilistic cues). This change demands that we examine cognitive processing within the automated cockpit in terms of the match or mismatch between the cognitive behavior elicited by the electronic environment, the cognitive response required by the task, and the cognitive strategy adopted by the pilot. The premise of this paper is that a framew...