From Continuously (Inchoately) Experiencing

PresencingFrom
Past to Future Experience 1
From Continuously (Inchoately) Experiencing to An Experience:

Presentations and Representations in Assessment for Instruction
and LearningThe Case of Debriefing in Aviation

Wolff-Michael Roth1,2, Alfredo Jornet3
1University of Victoria; 2Griffith Institute of Educational Research; 3University of Oslo

Abstract Much of what professionals know is learned from the experience of
working on the job. However, to improve learning from practice requires analysis of
practical engagement. How does one learn from experience, which, as pragmatists
frequently suggest, is inchoate and characterized as absorbed coping, so that
something like a determinate experience, an experience, can be isolated, reflected
upon, and learned from? In this study, we investigate this issue in the context of
debriefing sessions from aviation where making aspects of past experience present
again for the purpose of learning is vital to the professional development of pilots.
Twenty-nine debriefing sessions were recorded in five airlines differing in their
(non-) use of an explicit assessment model for pilot performance and (non-) use of a
video-mediated debriefing tool giving rise to a 2 x 2 factorial design. The results
show (a) that pilots tend to forget much of what has happened during their
examinations in the simulator and that the verbal mode alone is insufficient to make
relevant events present again for the purpose of reflection and analysis; (b) bodily
kinetic forms of knowing are critical aspects in making present complex
performances that exist in the form of kinetic melodies rather than being encoded in
the form of explicit representations; and (c) different presentational and
representational tools offer different levels of support in making past experience
present again. The results are discussed in terms of assessment for learning,
corporeal memory, and the role of objects in presencing past experiences.
Implications are drawn for different contexts in which participants are expected to
learn from experience.

Keywords Experience; presencing; representation; Dewey; aviation; debriefing;
formative assessment; learning

Fragment 1
Interviewer: Whats in this session that youve done so far that stands out for you?
What stood out? Positive.
Pilot:
Um, I was just running through using that F-DODAR model, trying to
apply it in the appropriate places and just seeing it actually captured a
wee thing thats got past us, which is having power management
selected at takeoff instead of in cruise or somewhere in the climb, I
cant remember specifically what it was, but. And, yea, I think, Oh it
caught that. So that was something. And just, yeah, that was probably
PresencingFrom Past to Future Experience 2

the one thing, there are lots of little things, but I havent really assessed
it fully in my mind just yet.

The pilot interviewed, an experienced airline captain who already trains pilots
new to the type of aircraft his company is using, just has come for a break midway
through a four-hour assessment session in a flight simulator. As other pilots in this
study, he has a difficult time remembering specifically what has happened during
the preceding two hoursan observation that has also been made in other studies
of debriefing in aviation (e.g., Dismukes, McDonnell, & Jobe, 2000). In fact, many
pilots interviewed in our study initially describe their preceding experience as a
blur. Most of the detail that returns to their conscious awareness does so while the
flight examiner goes through the different exercises they have done before in the
high-fidelity, full motion simulator. Frequently during these debriefing sessions,
instances were recorded in which the pilots expressed surprise about having or not
having said or done something in the simulator. These details tend to come from the
flight examiners notebook or recollections, or when pilots see themselves on the
videotape that some companies use to record the simulator sessions. It is frequently
only when situations are made present againwhen they are presented or
represented in some formthat from the preceding stream of (inchoate) experience
some fragments stand out as experience to be remembered. It is from these
remembered segments of experiences that pilots learn to perform in the future
when they find themselves in non-normal situations that they do not tend to
encounter during their everyday flying, but for which they have to be prepared just
in case such an event would actually occur. That is, the only way to prepare for
flying expertly under non-normal conditions is to experience these in simulated
situations where there is no risk to aircraft, passengers, and pilots. But if such
situations are experienced as a blur, how can pilot learn and thereby become ready
for the unexpected? The current research on debriefing generally and on debriefing
in simulation-based learning specifically tends to be silent: there is little peerreviewed literature on how to debrief, how to learn/teach to debrief, and effective
debriefing methods/practices (Fanning & Gaba, 2007).
Our ongoing ethnographic research in aviation shows that many flight examiners
intuitively know that assessment itself is not sufficient to learn but that they have to
work with the pilots and actually go through the events that preceded and pull out
those aspects that will help improve future performance in real flight situations. One
of the flight examiners expresses this to the pilots concisely:

So theres my simple statement, so both of you passed. So now well go down to
some nitty-gritty. And one of the things in going through it is important that you
actually, if we just said Yep, great day, you passed, youre not going to achieve
the same effect as if we actually go through and have a look at individual items
and see if we can actually go through to mature our performance for the next
time. So thats what its all about.

Flight examiners thereby tell examined pilots that doing the nitty-gritty thing,
actually going through the preceding experience, will achieve a different effect than

simply being told that they have passed the examination. Such flight examiners
intuitively enact a distinction made by pragmatic philosophers between the
continuity of experience, which is the result of the life-constitutive transactions
involving a subject and its environing conditions and an experience, which is a
whole and carries with it its own individualizing quality and self-sufficiency
(Dewey, 1934/2008, p. 42). The distinction is not only relevant to flight examiners,
but also to a larger concern in research on learning and cognition about the role of
past experience in future performance in general (e.g., Schwartz, Sears, & Chang,
2007) and about the role that particular instructional practices and representations
have in mediating between the two (e.g., Son & Goldstone, 2009).
In this study, we investigate the tool-mediated social practices that are
performed to make present again aspects of lived experience so that the latter
comes to stand out as an experience in the Deweyan sense. The context is
constituted by debriefing sessions in aviation, where pilots learn while and as a
result of debriefing their performance with an examiner who has observed them. In
this regard, these sessions can be considered a form of formative assessment
(Rudolph, Simon, Raemer, & Eppich, 2008), where prior performance is not simply
assessed in a dispassionate manner, but rather where new insights are achieved in
the dialogue between pilots and examiners. Throughout the debriefing sessions,
recalling specific events that have occurred during prior performance becomes the
central problem of the activity. Often, recalling is not just achieved verbally, but
involves making the previous experience present again by a variety of performative
and material means. We begin by reviewing literature on the role of prior
experience in future performance and learning. We contrast standard cognitive
models, which take representations as the most fundamental aspects that connect
prior and current experience, with situated cognition models, which emphasize the
role of immediate, bodily, intellectual, and affective relations binding together
learner and environment into one unit. To investigate how these immediate aspects
of experience are involved in bringing about new insights during debriefing
sessions, we elaborate on the pragmatist and cultural-historical category of
experience (Dewey, 1934/2008; Vygotskij, 1935/2001). According to the latter,
learning from prior experience involves that learners become implicated in what
happens to them not only intellectually, but also practically and affectively. In our
analyses, we examine how instructors and pilots together, and by means of different
tools and representations, achieve such emotional, intellectual and perceptual
implication during the debriefing situations.

BACKGROUND

Prior Experience and Learning: From Representational to Situational models

According to standard cognitive models, the influence of prior experience on
current action and learning is mediated by means of mental representations (Vera &
Simon, 1993). From this view, experience is seen as encoded and stored in memory
in the form of either analog or propositional (symbolic) knowledge structures
(Grimm, 2014). Connections between prior and current experience take place in the

form of mental structural mappings across representations (Gentner & Markman,
1997). Throughout repeated experiences that share common features, these
knowledge structures become more abstract and general and, therefore, useful in a
wider range of situations (Reed, 1993; Singley & Anderson, 1989). Research within
this framework has a long tradition of studies investigating the conditions under
which learners come to retrieve and apply knowledge acquired during prior
experiences, and continues to be an important focus in the literature (e.g., van Galen
& Reitsma, 2011). In case-based instructional approaches, learners engage in
solving diverse but related problems to facilitate the development of generalized
knowledge structures that can be applied in future learning situations. Learners
failures to do so are typically explained in terms of problems in the encoding of
experiences, which makes retrieval at appropriate times difficult or by difficulties in
mapping the appropriate components across representations of past and current
experience (e.g., Kolodner, 1997).
During the last decades, the view of prior experience as a repository of abstract
knowledge has been challenged from situated cognition approaches, which argue
that cognition is grounded in action and perception processes rather than in
structural abstractions (Barsalou, 2008; Roth & Jornet, 2013). In this regard, some
researchers have pursued to show that intelligence is possible without reason as
conceived in the traditional way, that is, without formal mental representations
(e.g., Brooks, 1995; Clancey, 1997). A case in point was made by modeling studies
that examined how artificial neural networks could be trained to recognize nouns,
verbs, and objects without having explicit representations thereof (Elman, 1993).
Cognitive scientists have shown that if Tetris players would have to use
representations to perceive and interpret what is displayed on the computer screen,
they would act an order of magnitude slower than they actually do (Kirsh & Maglio,
1995). In most normal, non-failure (breakdown) situations behavior is
psychologically better modeled in terms of absorbed coping rather than in terms of
mental representation (e.g., Dreyfus, 2007; Suchman, 2007). In coping during
everyday activity, human actors do not fashion representations but are intimately
connected to the world and the tools and materials that they use (Ingold, 2011).
Such tools may include what psychologists have come to distinguish as external
representations (Schnotz & Krschner, 2008; Zhang & Patel, 2006); in some social
sciences, these have been theorized under the heading of inscriptions (e.g., Roth &
McGinn, 1998).
Rather than mentally representing facts and rules about the world, knowing
refers to how an organism functions in the world (Roth & Jornet, 2013). Accordingly,
during knowledgeable performance, it is not that we hold representations of the
world, but rather the world serves as its own external representation. From this
view, the presence of structured things in a situation, their handiness with regard to
ongoing performance, are important cognitive resources for everyday performance
and human experience (Agre, 1997; Clancey, 1997; Gibson, 1986). There have been
suggestions that the mind maintains a set of deictic pointers to relevant objects,
processes, and states in the world rather than representing states of the world
(Ballard, Hayhoe, Pook. & Rao, 1997). Artificial intelligence researchers have shown
that short order cooks can prepare some ten orders simultaneously because they

transform states in the world rather than because they process mental
representations of the kitchen and its contents (Agre & Horswill, 1997).
Psychological and neurological research has developed accounts of visual
perception that instead of representations of the outside world take sensorimotor
contingencies learned through embodied engagement as their starting point
(ORegan & Ne, 2001). In this regard, the close relation between the immediate
material context and body movement as integral aspects of cognition has been
conceptualized as corporality, which captures the fact that when you move your
body, incoming sensory information immediately changes (ORegan, Myin, & Ne,
2005, p. 374). It is because of this close relation between body movement and
perception that sensory information has a certain intimate quality and it is almost
as though it were part of you (p. 374).
Of most relevance to learning during debriefing situations, accounts of
remembering have been developed that do not resort to notions of retrieving in the
classical sense. These accounts refer to memory traces as incomplete, partial, and
context-sensitive, to be reconstructed rather than reproduced (Sutton, 2009, p.
229). As Clancey (1997) notes, remembering is not retrieving one thing but
reestablishing a relation, a way of coordinating perception, words, ideas, and
actions (p. 48). Together, this research suggests that bringing prior experience to
bear on current activity includes an active corporeal relation to the immediate social
and material context of activity as an integral aspect of thinking and learning.
In research on instruction, the intimate connection between context and
generalization of learning has received considerable attention during recent years
(Greeno, Smith, & Moore, 1993; Hershkowitz, Schwarz & Dreyfus, 2001). Some
studies have examined the extent to which providing contextualizing detail in the
instructional materials affects learning of general principles (Son & Goldstone,
2009). Situative interpretations of the findings of such studies suggest that, rather
than ignoring (abstracting) aspects of the learning contexts, generality depends on
attending to specific features of a learning situation in some particular way,
involving a structural relation in which they participate (Greeno, 2009, p. 272).
Other studies document how instructional practices that lead to generalization
involve making particular aspects of the immediate (classroom) environment
perceptually salient (Lobato, Rhodehamel, & Hohensee, 2012). Teachers have been
found to perform gestures that simulate specific actions and perceptual states when
introducing new and complex mathematical ideas (Alibali et al., 2014). However,
how such perceptual and performative aspects are involved in teaching / learning
during debriefing situations in which prior experiences are being recalled and
reflected upon has not been investigated.
Although reviews have included considerations of the setting, these
considerations were limited to such issues as comfort and seating arrangements
(e.g. Fanning & Gaba, 2007) and did not include the role of cognitively relevant
artifacts. The role of video during debriefing, as shown in different meta-analyses of
debriefing for technology-enhanced simulation, is negligible (Cheng et al., 2014;
Tannenbaum & Cerusoli, 2013). However, the literature reviewed above suggests
the importance of considering how bodily and contextual aspects of activity are
involved in formative practices involving the recalling of prior experience to

improve future performance. Recent cognitive studies in aviation show that pilots,
while evaluating the performance of their peers, often enact the same movements
that they would use in the cockpit to articulate what the pilots in a videotaped
scenario should have done (Roth & Mavin, 2014). The prevalence of gestures that
model aspects of actual cockpit situations during aviation debriefing sessions has
been documented in other studies as well (e.g., Hutchins & Nomura, 2011). There
have been suggestions in studies of bonobo mother/child relations (Hutchins &
Johnson, 2009) and of school students (Roth, 2003) that symbolic hand/arm
movements may arise from work-related (ergotic) or informationproducing/seeking (epistemic) hand/arm movements. Together, these findings may
lead us to suspect that bodily enacting specific aspects of prior experience / activity
are an important aspect of developing knowledgeable competence during
instructional situations.

Experience and Learning from a Pragmatic and Cultural-Historical Perspective

Although the literature on situated cognition reviewed above presents
consistent findings suggesting that immediate bodily experience and absorbed
copingand not just representationare fundamental to thinking and learning,
there is important variability on how experience and its relation to learning are
theorized (Barsalou, 2008). In recent work, points in common between several of
the intellectual and scientific antecedents of situated cognition, including American
pragmatism, phenomenology, and cultural-historical psychology, have been
emphasized to develop a theory of experience that takes as point of departure the
irreducible unity of the practical, intellectual, and affective dimensions of activity
(Roth & Jornet, 2014). Central to this theory are Deweys and Vygotskys ideas on
experience, and the Russian equivalent term pereivanie, as analytical categories to
investigate the relation between persons-acting-in-settings and their learning and
development. For these authors, experience is an analytical category that denotes a
relationship of a person with the world and captures this relationship in terms of its
intellectual, pragmatic, and affective reflection in the person (Dewey, 1934/2008;
Vygotskij, 1935/2001). Inner and outer aspects are irreducible parts of an
experiential wholea transactioncharacteristic of a situation rather than of a
person.
Dewey (1934/2008) distinguishes between the general stream of experience
and an experience, which stands out as a completed, determinate, and integral
whole. According to Dewey, an experience is a whole and carries with it its own
individualizing quality and self-sufficiency (p. 42). In contrast to inchoate
experience, an experience possesses internal integration and fulfillment (p. 45).
Without this determinate and integrated quality, any experience, whether practical
or intellectual, is inconclusive. These original experiences, therefore, are important
to what it means to know, for without them [the thinker] would never know what it
is really to think and would be completely at a loss in distinguishing real thought
from the spurious article (p. 44). Those experiences are central to what it means to
learn because they are what takes root in mind (p. 51). Importantly, however,
those experiences are never only intellectual (i.e. only dealing with symbols,

representations). Rather, although after its occurrence an experience may be found
to have been predominantly intellectual, in its actual occurrence it was emotional
as well (p. 44). This is so because emotion is the moving and cementing force (p.
49) that brings the otherwise inchoate aspects of experience together into an
integral and significant whole. Even when thinking in terms of propositions, Dewey
argues, premises and conclusions are not self-standing entities that the mind brings
together. Rather, in an experience of thinking, premises emerge only as a
conclusion becomes manifest (p. 44). That is, it is the emotional and practical
integrity of an experience that provides for its intellectual coherence.
Deweys notion of an experience is in many ways consistent with that of
Vygotskys pereivanie (Vygotskij, 1935/2001), which the latter introduced to
discuss the relation between a childs environment and her development. In this
context, pereivanie determines what kind of influence this situation or this
environment will have on the child (p. 73). Because the Russian pereivanie also
translates feeling, it emphasizes the affective side of experience. In his
characterization of thinking, Vygotsky shares with Dewey the view that intellectual
and affective / motivational aspects are united in experience. Thus, pereivanie is a
category and unit of analysis aimed to capture how a child becomes aware of,
comprehends, and affectively relates to a certain event (p. 75). With regard to
thinking, Vygotsky argues, Thought itself is not born of other thoughts but has its
origins in the motivating sphere of consciousness that includes our inclinations and
needs, our interests and impulses, and our affect and emotions (Vygotskij, 2005, p.
1013). In a similar vein, Dewey (1934/2008) argues that in actual practice there are
trains of ideas, which form a train only because they are much more than what an
analytic psychology calls ideas. They are phases, emotionally and practically
distinguished, of a developing underlying quality (p. 44). Intellectual, emotional,
and practical aspects of activity, thus, are irreducibly connected in the congruence of
an experience.
Dewey and Vygotskys ideas on experience are relevant to the present study
because they provide a framework for (a) understanding the relation between the
practice of making prior experience present during debriefing sessions and (b) the
achievement of new insights (learning) during such sessions. In particular, they help
us address a question that standard representational cognitive theories do not
address, that is, the question of significance and relevance (Dreyfus, 2007): how can
a learner know which aspects of any given (represented) situation are the ones
relevant with regard to a given activity if precisely the motive of that activity is what
the learners does not yet know? The notion of an experience implies that the learner,
in producing and being subject of an emotional quality of internal fulfillment and
integration, comes to find a world that presents itself as meaningful. This aligns with
recent work on cognition of flying emphasizing that the appropriate unit is not the
individual pilot nor the interaction between the pilots but the cockpit as a joint
cognitive system (Henriqson, van Winsen, Saurin, & Dekker, 2011; Hutchins, 1995).
The individual pilot therefore does not just act but is caught up in the constitutive
relations that make the cockpit an irreducible unit.
The distinction between the flux of (inchoate) experience and an experience is
important in that it highlights a distinction between the kind of experience that may

result from automatically acting out a habit, and the kind of experience that may
lead to new insight and learning. The difference is between unmediated relation to
the world in the sense of ecological psychology (Gibson, 1986; Norman, 1988), and
an access to the world mediated by means of signs and tools (Vygotskij, 2005). With
respect to tools, for example, we distinguish those that are simply present and
ready-to-hand from those that become present-at-hand (Dreyfus, 1991; Suchman,
2007). Whereas the former tend to disappear from awareness in the flow of
experience, the latter become salient and can be reflected upon. However, unlike
much literature that characterizes reflection as fundamentally an intellectual
endeavor, the framework articulated here suggests that reflection must be studied
as an emotional and perceptual organization.

PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The scientific and theoretical literature reviewed above suggests the importance
of considering the performative and affective aspects as essential to thinking and
learning. In this study, we investigate those aspects in the context of debriefing in
aviation. For pilots, thinking- and acting-in-situation are not separate but integral to
their holistic experience of flying (Mavin & Roth, 2014). During the simulator
performance, one difficult, not normally experienced situation follows another. Such
a context often impedes, as Dewey (1934/2008) points out, the emergence of an
experience as no one experience has a chance to complete itself because something
else is entered upon so speedily (p. 51). As a result, nothing takes roots in mind
(p. 51). The philosopher emphasizes that this taking root cannot be achieved by
intellectual means alone because experience comes not by mere intellectual and
outside judgment but in direct perception (p. 56). It is only once an experience runs
its course as an integral whole that it can be reflected upon; it is by being
emotionally and practically implicated in the unfolding of such integral experiences
that learners come to develop new insight.
Pilots come out of simulator sessions and already may have had an experience
because of the extraordinary nature of the event. However, in the present study,
part of the objective of (most of) the debriefing session is to make parts of the
original situation present againeven if it had not been a significant eventso that
it stands out to be described, analyzed, and assessed. It is through description,
analysis, and assessment of previous experience that the pilots can learn from it.
That is, whereas Dewey described those situations in our lives that stand out on
their own, the purpose of this study is to investigate the instructional practices by
means of which prior events are made present again so that an aspect becomes an
experience. Understanding such instructional practices involves considering not
only the role of representations, but also of any array of objects and performances
mobilized for making present prior experience again. Because they presuppose
immanent rather than prior formal understanding, the latter have been referred to
as presentations (e.g., Jornet & Roth, in press). Accordingly, in the present study we
address two interrelated research questions:
How are past events made present again for the purpose of turning what has
been part of a frequently inchoate stream of experience into an experience
during formative assessment situations (here debriefing in aviation)?
How are different presentations and representations involved in making
prior experience present again?
METHOD

This study was designed to investigate the tool-mediated social practices that
are performed to make present again aspects of lived experience so that the latter
comes to stand out as an experience in the Deweyan sense. The sessions are
intended not only to assess pilots but also to allow them to learn acting in situations
not normally encountered during regular flying (e.g., engine failure). The study
employs a form of experience sampling methodology ideally suited for the study of
behavior in organizations because it increases our understanding of variability in
how people feel, think, and act over the course of their daily lives, and how
momentary experiences and events can impact a variety of individual-level
outcomes (Dimotakis, Ilies, & Judge, 2013, p. 325, emphasis added). The design here
is matched to the theoretical underpinnings of this study concerning learning
(outcome) from experience.

Design

This study is a naturalistic investigation in which airlines (pilots) were invited to
participate according to a 2x2 factorial design (Figure 1): (a) a company either uses
or does not use an explicit human-factors based model of assessment of pilot
performance (MAPP) and (b) a company uses or does not use a debriefing tool
(DBT). However, airline companies were nested within cells so that any statistically
significant tests may be due to the company differences rather than effects of tool
use. The investigation is part of a larger ethnographic study concerned with the
assessment and training of airline pilots. The debriefing sessions were part of the
participating companies regular activities during a specific time made available for
data collection. Sessions were recorded involving five regional airlines in the
southern hemisphere, 28 using a twin-propeller aircraft from one of two major
manufacturers and one flying jets.
Insert Figure 1 about here

Access and Ethics

This study is part of a research program that brings together university and
industry partners. The third author, having been a commercial pilot and having
served as flight examiner for an aircraft manufacturer, established relations with
many airlines in the geographical area that contribute to funding research on their
operations. This is an important first step in accessing debriefing sessions that are
normally held in camera and are rarely accessible by researchers. Because of our

past research in the context, airline managers, pilots, and labor unions have come to
recognize the benefits that they accrue from participating in applied cognitive
research, which include devising more efficient assessment methods and
instruments.
Because of the sensitive nature of the data, approval was sought and provided by
the university ethics board, the airlines, the relevant labor unions, and the
individual pilots. Concerning the latter, the ethics protocol included a statement in
the invitation that non/participation (withdrawal) would not affect employment
status. The multi-leveled approval process was important especially in the case of
companies using the video-based debriefing tool, as recordings from the simulator
normally are destroyed, as recommended by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority
(FAA) (2004). (One consequence of destruction is that it prevents the possibility of
court subpoenas should a pilot be involved in a crash.)
Recommendations for debriefing tend to include the responsibility of the
evaluator or facilitator to set a positive, non-threatening, and supportive climate
(FAA, 2004; Fanning & Gaba, 2007). However, in the present study, debriefing,
though occurring in a simulator, inherently contains a threatening component
because the pilots are assessed in addition to engage in learning. Failure is inherent
to the nature of these debriefing sessions because the outcome of the assessment
can lead a pilot to being taken off regular duty and to be assigned to retraining.

Participants

Five airlines from two countries in the southern hemisphere were involved in
the study. Participants in the study were those flight examiners and pilots (a) slotted
in the simulator during this period and (b) willing to participate in the study. A total
of 38 pilots (MAGE = 37.2 years, SDAGE = 8.3) underwent examination and training.
There was a wide range of prior experience as measured by years as commercial
pilot, which ranged from 4 to 34 years (MFLY = 12.7 yrs, SDFLY = 8.1), or by total flying
hours, which ranged from a low of 1,200 hrs to a high of 16,000 hrs (MHRS = 5,710,
SDHRS = 3,431). Details for pilots with different rank and experience are provided in
Table 1. Although pilots may already have considerable experience (e.g., one
participating pilot in training already had 7 years as commercial pilot and 3,200
flight hours), they undergo special type-rating training when hired to fly an aircraft
type new to them. Six of the pilots involved were in training or were undergoing
end-of-training assessment. Pilots begin their career on a particular aircraft as first
officers once they have completed the type-rating training. There were n = 14 first
officers. Experienced and competent first officers become captains after having
undergone command upgrade training. There were 14 pilots at the rank of captain.
Experienced captains may become flight examiners after having undergone on-thejob training with another flight examiner. There were four flight examiners among
the examined pilots; three of them also served as flight examiners in this study.
There were three female pilots (n = 3), one each at the ranks of trainee, first officer,
and captain.
Insert Table 1 about here

A total of 29 debriefing sessions were recorded, sometimes involving repeated
sessions with the same flight examiner/pilots combinations, sessions with the same
flight examiner but different examinees, and training sessions for experienced pilots
in the process of training to fly the particular aircraft of their new employer. There
were a total of 14 flight examiners with considerable careers as pilots and
accumulated flying hours (Table 1). All flight examiners were male. Their flight
examiner experience varied widely, from the 1 year of an examiner still in training
to the 23 years of the most seasoned examiner (MEX = 9.7 yrs, SDEX = 9.2).

Debriefing and Assessment

Debriefing

The context of this study on learning from experience is constituted by
debriefing sessions as these occur in everyday aviation practice. The practice of
debriefing performance once an activity or exercise has been completed is integral
to a range of domains, including the military (e.g., Adler, Bliese, McGurk, Hoge, &
Castro, 2009), teacher training and professional development (e.g., Flint, Zisook, &
Fisher, 2011), medical practice and simulation exercises in healthcare (Fanning &
Gaba, 2007), and aviation (Dismukes, 2000). Debriefing fits into a Dewey-inspired
experiential learning paradigm thought to be especially effective for adult learners
(Kolb, 1984). There is recognition that how much pilots learn from exercises in the
flight simulator depends on the debriefing sessions that more-or-less immediately
follow (Dismukes et al., 2000).
Recollection and accurate description of what has happened are important
ingredients to successful learning from experience during debriefing. The intensity
of a four-hour simulator session, where pilots are involved in a manner best
described by the term absorbed coping, hampers recalling situations in greater
detail (Dismukes et al., 2000). Theoretical analysis of absorbed coping and related
experiences of flow or meditation suggests that precisely because in these
modalities of experience the situation is not apprehended by means of
representations, they cannot be immediately represented when the experience has
come to a close (Husserl, 1980). Central to the practices of recalling and describing
what has happened during the simulated flight situations are the tools and
representation that make it possible for things and events to be present while they
are absent. Although regulatory bodies recommend audiovisual feedback during
debriefing of line-oriented flight training and other training, which is held to be an
excellent way for flight crewmembers to assess their skills as individuals and as
team members (FAA, 2004, p. 7), this practice is not yet widely implemented in the
industry (e.g. Hutchins, Weibel, Fouse, Emmenegger, & Holder, 2013). The FAA
advisory also states that the greatest impact of debriefing arises from self- and peerproduced critique in the context of guidance from a facilitator. Integral to viewing
themselves is the third-person perspective; and the videotapes are crucial because
of their capability of vivid depiction of strengths and weaknesses in performance.
Research shows, however, that the recommended behaviors tend not to be

implemented in actual debriefing sessions (e.g., Dismukes et al., 2000) limiting the
amount of learning that can accrue for the pilots under examination.

Organization of Debriefing Sessions

The aviation regulators in the two countries where the study took place
currently specify two annual assessment sessions, each lasting 2 days. On each day,
there is a 4-hour simulator session, which tends to be broken into two sessions with
a brief, approximately 15-minute break between the first and second half. The time
in the simulator is followed by a 1-hour slot dedicated to debriefing, with
approximately 1015 minutes given for a break during which many flight examiners
prepare for what is to come. Although provided with a 1-hr slot, the sessions lasted
a mean of X = 36.4 minutes (SD = 14.3). There was a considerable spread, the
shortest session lasting only 11 minutes, the longest 57 minutes. We conducted an
ANOVA including the 28 sessions from four airlines. There was a significant effect
(F(3,24) = 3.59, p < .0001). A Tukey HSD test identifies a statistically reliable
difference at the = .05 level between airlines A (nMAPP/nDBT) and B
(MAPP/nDBT) and between A and D (MAPP/DBT); the differences between B and C
(nMAPP/DBT) and between B and D are significant at the = .01 level (Table 2). The
analyses reported on below show that the airlines appear to represent very
different debriefing cultures, in part associated with the ways in which the
conceptual assessment model MAPP is used. In airline B, emphasis is almost entirely
on assessment with little time spent on actually making experience present again
for the purpose of description, analysis, and assessment. The two airlines that use
the debriefing tool (i.e., videotapes of performance) tend to have longer debriefing
sessions than those airlines that do not have this tool.
Flight examiners tend to be experienced pilots who continue to fly for their
airline, and, for this reason, are also subject to the biannual assessment. The
sessions include specific exercises (e.g., an engine fire during or following a takeoff)
and line-oriented flight training (LOFT), where the pilots fly an entire segment of a
commercial flight from one to another airport; the segment is integral part of a
companys service, often including airports less well known by pilots or airports
that involve (climatic, geographical) hazards.
The purpose of the debriefing sessions is not merely to assess performance
generally but to do so under non-normal conditions. Therefore, these simulator
sessions also are the only times when most pilots encounter, and learn to fly, under
non-normal conditions. The examiners have over 200 preprogrammed types of
problems or failures, from which a company selects certain types to be used during
a 6-month assessment cycle. When pilots fail particular exercises, they tend to be
asked to repeat these then and there (sometimes immediately, sometimes at the end
of the examination session). When pilots fail the assessment as a whole, then they
are put on a retraining schedule. Repeated failure of assessment tends to lead to
dismissal. As pilot training is expensive, companies are more interested in providing
appropriate training and retraining than in dismissal. (The third author assists one
airline in such retraining of pilots who have shown weaknesses during their annual

checks by means of one-on-one tutoring sessions. Research on this retraining is
currently under way.) Each 4-hour simulator session is debriefed for the purpose of
analyzing what has happened and to communicate areas of strength and weakness.

Tools for Debriefing

In the present study, a 2x2 factorial design was used for the recruitment of
airlines. One factor in the design of our investigation was the use or non-use of a
holistic model of assessing pilot performance (MAPP) that a number of airlines in
the geographical areas use in the training and assessment of pilots (Mavin, Roth, &
Dekker, 2013). The second factor determining recruitment was whether airlines
used or did not use a debriefing tool (DBT).

Model of Airline Pilot Performance (MAPP) In the debriefing rooms of the
airlines using the model, a diagram representing the model was posted on the wall
and was available in a letter-sized, laminated form on the table separating examiner
and examinees. The model takes a holistic view of performance integrating
frequently separately theorized technical (aircraft knowledge and [standard
operating] procedures; technical aspects of flying) and non-technical skills (flight
and crew management, communication [between pilots and with cabin crew or
tower], decision-making, and situational awareness) (Figure 2). These six categories
are further classified as essential skills and enabling skills. The companies use an
assessment metric that breaks each of the major performance categories down into
subcategories, each of which may obtain a score from 1 (marginal) to 5 (very good).
For example, the main category of situation awareness has as subcategories
perception, comprehension, and projection. This conceptual tool is integral to the
training of the two airlines in the present study, and correspond to an advisory by
the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (2004) that crewmembers should critique the
crew resource management conceptswhich correspond to the non-technical skills.
To facilitate mapping observed performance onto the Likert-type scale of the
assessment tool, the companies have produced word pictures such that a score of 1
for the projection dimension corresponds to Did not predict future events, even
those obvious to flight safety, a score of 3 is equivalent to some difficulty
predicting future events, and a score of 5 means that the pilot actively considered
future events and impact on flight safety. All pilots in the airlines using the model
have had related instruction; more importantly, during their instruction the pilots
also used the assessment metric to evaluate pilots featured in videotaped scenarios.
The flight examiners have had 2-day training workshops and have used the model
as part of their regular job with their airlines. They have used the model not only to
evaluate scenarios but also during regular assessments in the debriefing room.

Debriefing tool (DBT) The debriefing tool is an integrated system that records
simulator sessions so that parts of it may be replayed during debriefing sessions
(Figure 3). The debriefing tool consists of a series of windows presenting different
aspects of the flight on a large monitor. The most frequently used window shows the

two pilots as seen by the flight examiner (top left, Figure 3). Other panels provide a
view of the aircraft from behind or what the pilots see (bottom left, Figure 3). Key
parts of the instrumentations were present in all sessions observed, including the
electronic flight instrument system, the electronic altitude director indicator, the
engine indicators, the steering column (pilot and side-views), power and flap levers,
and the tracking of the plan on a map showing the waypoints that the plane is
passing.

Data Collection

The participants were briefly interviewed during the breaks between the two
parts of their daily simulator sessions, following the second part, and following the
debriefing session. The participants were asked to describe (a) what was standing
out from the preceding period and (b) (for the interviews preceding the debriefing
session) what they anticipated being brought up by the flight examiner. During the
final interview, participants were asked whether the debriefing session had covered
what they expected and whether there were additional, unexpected issues raised.
The interviews between the sessions averaged between 9 and 10 minutes and the
post-interviews averaged 15 minutes for a total of 16:27 hours. The debriefing
sessions were recorded in their entirety for a total of 17:44 hours.
All interviews were audiotaped. The debriefing sessions were videotaped using
two cameras at opposite ends of the room. The first captured the session with a
focus on the examinees, where the examinees were seated on one side of the table
and the examiner on the other. The camera also tended to capture the photorealistic poster depicting the cockpit; in those instances where the debriefing tool
was used, this camera centrally featured what was displayed on the large TV
monitor. The second camera focused on the flight examiner and included the
whiteboard, which some flight examiners used as part of the debriefing session. A
commercial provider produced all transcriptions of audiotapes and videotapes. The
company draws on the services of a transcriber with piloting experience capable of
correctly identifying aviation terms and acronyms. Two of the authors reviewed all
transcriptions and, where necessary, corrected the text or the speaker assignment.
Our database also includes stimulated recall sessions with six of the flight
examiners. The examiners were shown segments of their debriefing sessions and
asked to reflect on how they prepare for the session, how they select
representations, and how they think about organizing the sessions. The sessions
were videotaped. The database furthermore included all aviation maps used during
the sessions, technical manuals for the aircraft, and standard operating procedures.

Data Analysis

Understanding and theorizing human practices requires researchers to be
competent in the phenomena that are the objects of research, especially in a
complex work environment such as flying a modern aircraft (Hutchins, 1995). The
third author of this paper had been a commercial airline pilot for 22 years with a

total of over 10,000 flying hours prior to becoming a faculty member. He continues
to work as a training pilot for a major company in the industry. He conducts regular
workshops for several airlines and the air force related to the assessment and
training of pilots. The fourth author is senior training manager of an airline, with 28
years of military and civil aviation experience. He has been flight examiner for 9
years. The first author is an applied cognitive scientist with experience of
investigating knowing and learning from early childhood to retirees in formal and
informal learning environments (school, university, informal settings, and
workplace) including three years of research in aviation. As part of his ethnographic
work, he flew small aircraft, flew larger aircraft in simulators, and observed flights
both in simulator sessions and on the examiner seat during regular flight
operations. The second author is a learning scientist specializing in representations
and their role in experience. Throughout the analyses, we closely worked with the
managers of training operations of the participating airlines when there were any
aircraft- or simulator-protocol-specific questions.
We began by reviewing the videotapes for a first time during our fieldwork,
which allowed us to identify other information and data to be collected. Initial
hypotheses about the use of various representations were produced at that time.
For example, we formulated the hypothesis that (a) flight examiners using the
model of assessment of pilot performance (MAPP) conceptually organize
assessment around human factors components rather than around the temporal
order of events or (b) hand/arm gestures and other body movements are not
merely symbolic but are the same movements that pilots enact during actual flying.
Upon completion of data collection and transcription, we repeatedly met for
weeklong meetings during which interaction analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995)
was conducted. Between the sessions of joint analysis, we conducted individual
analyses and submitted these for crosschecks by other authors. For the present
analyses, we identified all segments where some form of inscription was used or
some form of flight-relevant hand/arm/body movement was produced as part of
the joint endeavor to make a simulator situation present again.
Previous research suggests that iconic gestures are integral to narratives
generally (McNeill, 2005) and to the narratives of pilots assessing flight
performance specifically (Roth & Mavin, 2014). Because this study investigates how
previous experiences are made present again, here pertaining to the experience of
flying an aircraft, we followed the Roth and Mavin study and counted all flightrelevant iconic gestures. These came in three kinds: (a) enacting what the pilot does
while flying (e.g., pushing a particular button located in a specific place) or
indicating where the gaze falls and what is perceived, (b) gestures presenting the
pilots experience in flight (e.g., the planes attitude, bank angle, feeling side wind, or
pouncing hard on the tarmac), and (c) a third-person perspective of the aircraft.
With respect to perceptions, the gestures included movements of gauges or where
the one or two gauges were those that the enacting person currently observed; the
locations of these instruments always were indicated nearly exactly where they
would have been placed in the cockpit (Roth, Mavin, & Munro, 2014). We did not
(take into) count metaphorical (iconic) gestures, for example, when a flight
examiner brings his hands together while saying this closes up your time. Under

(a), every flight-relevant gesture was counted, which, in one (extreme) situation led
to 12 action/observation gestures in 13 seconds. The flight related gestures
accounted only for a small part of all iconic (metaphorical) gestures used. Counted
were only those iconic gestures in narrative space (Roth & Lawless, 2002), that is,
gestures spatially oriented toward the audience accompanying a narrative and not
those that occurred in inscription space, that is, that occurred over and about some
inscription. Any potentially ambiguous gesture was discussed and analyzed in terms
of the position of relevant switches, dials, levers, lights, or instruments with respect
to the position of the pilot. Gestures were counted only when these clearly related to
the operation of the aircraft or its movement in space.

PLAN FOR THE REMAINDER OF THIS PAPER

This study was designed to investigate the tool-mediated practices in which
examiners and examinees engage during debriefing sessions to make previous,
examination-related events present again for the purpose of learning from
experience. In the process, the practices bring forth from a stream of often-inchoate
experience a small number of delimited events, each of which becomes an
experience. Our analyses focus on the transactional means by which such saliency is
achieved. The context for our research is constituted by the debriefing meetings that
follow training and examination sessions of pilots that take place in full-motion,
high-fidelity simulators. In the debriefing meetings recorded here, a range of
artifacts are used and with different number of sessions where they are present
(Table 3). Moreover, the artifacts are of different types: some serve presentational
functions in that what the members to the setting attend to are exactly the same
artifacts that also appear in the cockpit (e.g., quick reference manual, charts, or
takeoff data card, or hand/arm movements typical for operating the aircraft) or
proxies thereof (e.g., cockpit instruments featured in the debriefing tool display,
Figure 3). Others serve representational functions, that is, stand in for something
else (e.g., the conceptual model of assessment of pilot performance, cockpit poster,
notes, or video).
We begin by providing an ethnographic characterization of the debriefing
sessions, where we identify the difficulties many pilots experience making present
again specifics of their preceding simulator session to be assessed and the
prevalence of the verbal mode by means of which debriefing occurs. We then
exemplify and discuss the role of kinetic-perceptual aspects of flying that
reappeared in the debriefing sessions and constituted an important part of bringing
past experience to life again. Finally, we show how different tools and
representations come to mediate the sessions differently as a function of how they
afford presenting and representing prior situations. We discuss the reported
findings under the aspects of (a) assessment for professional development, (b) the
role of kinetic melodies and corporeal memory, and (c) the role of objects in joint
presencing of past experience. We end by sketching implications for research and
practice.


DIFFICULTIES IN MAKING PRIOR EVENTS PRESENT AGAIN DURING DEBRIEFING
SESSIONS

The purpose of the debriefing sessions is to allow pilots to learn from the events
that occurred during the 4-hr examination (training) sessions that immediately
preceded the debriefing. However, as intimated in the opening statements of this
study, the examination sessions lead from situation to situation such that pilots
forget much of what remains an inchoate stream of experience. The practice of
making those past events present again for the purpose of learning from them is
dominated by the verbal mode, which pilots and their examiners often characterize
as going over the head. In this section, we elaborate on each of these two points:
difficulties in making the past present and the dominance of the verbal mode.

Difficulties making present experience and the verbal mode Many pilots talked
about the simulator sessions as constituting a blur, but do talk about and thereby
make present again specific events or phenomena that stand out. The reply to the
question What stood out for you? that opens this article is typical in that it
generically points to some issue, here the use of the action model FDODAR (see
below). The excerpt is typical in that frequently little stands out in specific detail,
though pilots have a general sense about whether the session went well or not.
When asked for specific aspects of the simulator sessions, pilots often fail or have
difficulties making these present again for the purpose of discussion. This is
apparent in the following three excerpts, each of which exhibits this problem. In the
first fragment, the examiner asks for the height at which the aircraft was flying after
the memory items following a missed approach (i.e., an aborted landing) had been
completed (turn 01). The captain ventured that it was about 1,000 feet (turn 02),
only to be corrected that they actually had been at 3,000 feet. Pilots have to know at
what height the aircraft is, because the procedure involved in a missed-approach /
go-around situation involves a sequence of specific calls at the point where the
aircraft is to level off after having climbed again because a landing had to be
aborted. In the second fragment, the flight examiner asks the first officer for the call
(a word sequence from the standard operating procedures) he had made at a
particular stage of the flight when one engine has failed (turn 01). The first officer
queries whether he had said acceleration altitude (turn 02), but the flight
examiner notes that he had called climb sequence (turn 03).

Fragment 21

1 The following conventions are used. Acronyms are replaced by full words placed in square
brackets (e.g., [advisory display unit] rather than ADU); square brackets also surround
additional text used to elaborate the often-abbreviated talk (e.g., three [thousand feet]
rather than three) that comes with high degrees of intersubjectivity (Vygotskij, 2005).
Descriptive nouns placed in guillemets (e.g., city) substitute proper names.
Observations are presented in double parentheses and italics (e.g., ((cancel light
movement))).

01 FE:
So we were still able to, we were climbing at a normal rate and by the
time wed done the memory items, what height were we at?
02 CAP: About over 1,000 [feet] probably.
03 FE: Three [thousand feet].

Fragment 3
01 FE: You made a statement that you use on two engines but we dont use that
statement on one engine.
02 FO: Oh did I say acceleration altitude?
03 FE: No you said climb sequence.

Fragment 4
01 FE: Do you know what speedyou started going off to the right, that was
finewhat the speed was?
02 CAP: Yea, we rejected early.
03 FE: When we went across?
04 CAP: I was looking at it and I thought its getting slow now, so probably I
should just check the [air speed indicator].
05 FE: When you turned?
06 CAP: No idea.
07 FE: You were doing 35 knots. And thats why it jammed, right?

Fragment 4 exemplifies that sometimes it takes several turn pairsconversation
analysts call this a repair sequencebefore a pilot, here the captain of the aircraft,
actually gets to respond to the question and then apparently fails to make present
again the speed that the aircraft was going. Asked for the speed when going off to
the right (turn 01), the captain first talks about having rejected takeoff early (turn
02), and then, following another prompt, says that he had been looking at the
airspeed indicator and that the aircraft was going slow (turn 04). The flight
examiner specifies again that the speed while turning is the item to be made present
again (turn 05), at which point the captain admits having no idea (turn 06). The
flight examiner then states the actual speed and the problem that it caused (i.e.,
something was jamming).
Many pilots asserted following the 4-hr simulator experience that it had been a
blurthough there are instances where something occurred that has been so
dramatic that it continues to be present to the individual pilot or to all of those
involved. But as the preceding examples show, pilots frequently failed or
experienced difficulties. That is, those aspects from the experience that were
relevant for learning to occur were not present for the pilots. If pilots are to learn, if
a particular action (sequence) is to have an effect for the future practice of the pilot,
then it has to stand out: from the inchoate stream of experience some part needs to
be turned into an (emotionally charged) experience such that it in fact can become
present again in the future to serve as a referent. An experience stands out and is
remembered precisely because it is easily made present again in the form of
presentations (original movements) and or representations.

The verbal mode observed in the preceding fragments is the dominant mode by
means of which the past was made present again during the debriefing sessions
observed. However, the amount of talk is unevenly distributed across flight
examiners (M = 4,163, SD = 1876) and pilots examined (M = 1,223, SD = 587). There
is a significant correlation between the duration of the sessions and the amount of
talk on the part of the flight examiners (r = .89, p < .0001) but not between duration
and the amount of pilot talk (r = .08, p > .05). An ANOVA shows that there is a
significant effect for airlines (F(3,24) = 10.00, p < .001) concerning the amount of
flight examiner talk. A Tukey HSD test shows significant differences between
airlines A and B at the = .05 level, and between B and C, and B and D at the = .01
level. There is no effect for the amount of talk on the part of the pilots. A comparison
of the ratio of the number of flight examiner words to number of pilot words
exhibits a significant effect (F(3,24) = 3.48, p < .05); however, none of the
differences between airlines are significant using the Tukey HSD test. On average,
flight examiners talked 4.22 times (SD = 2.72) as much as the two pilots taken
together, ranging from a factor of 2.14 in airline A (MAPP/nDBT) to a factor 5.84 in
airline D (MAPP/DBT). There was considerable variation, however, as some
sessions exhibit an equal distribution between the amount of flight examiner and
pilot talk to the extreme of a flight examiner talking 10 times as much as the two
pilots taken together (Table 4). Analyses of those examiners doing multiple sessions
show that they tend to be very consistent. There were two exceptions. In one
instance, an airline D examiner had two sessions with ratios of 5.08 and 5.35 and
one with a ratio of 10.41; in another instance, an airline B examiner had two
sessions with ratios of 0.98 and 1.06 and a third with a ratio of 3.69.

Discussion Throughout our study, the failure or difficulty pilots experienced to
make present again a flight-relevant event from which they were to learn was
apparent. The results presented here show that in most airlines, the flight examiners
dominated the verbal exchanges. Both examiners and pilots often suggested that the
talk was over the head of the (tired and exhausted) pilots, especially when the
examinations had taken place at night or during the wee hours of the morning.
Although the verbal mode dominated, most sessions included instances where the
pilots or flight examiners replayed action sequences with or without flight-deck
artifacts (presentations) or representational tools. In such situations, past
experiences were present again. We present these dimensions of the debriefing
sessions during the remainder of these analyses. First, we focus on the kineticperceptual aspects of making (details of) events present again. Then, we investigate
the role that different tools have in affording those kinetic-perceptual aspects of
presencing.

KINETIC-PERCEPTUAL ASPECTS OF MAKING EVENTS PRESENT AGAIN

Previous research on the cognition of flying suggests that pilot knowledge exists
in the form of (body) movement and perception sequences, rather than as
knowledge that is enacted by movements (Roth & Mavin, 2014). In this regard, the

notion of kinetic melody has been introduced to account for the bodily and embodied
knowledge that is acquired from flying and which becomes alive in sequentially and
temporally organized flows (Roth, Mavin, & Munro, 2014). Thus, when pilots discuss
what to do in a particular situatione.g., when watching scenarios where pilots fly
in difficult situationsthey actually move their hands, arms, body, and gaze in the
way they would do if they were the pilots currently flying an aircraft. These
movements are not merely generic but are spatially accurate, locating instruments
and actuators (dials, switches, levers, or control column) so precisely that a 5centimeter change in location leads to performance errors (Roth et al., 2014). This
accuracy therefore is similar to that between gestures and geography characteristic
in the cognition of the Guugu Yimithirr in Australia (Levinson, 1997), Hai||om
bushpeople in Namibia (Widlok, 1997), and the Tzotzil Maya in Mexico (Haviland,
2000). Hand/arm and body movements and orientations that produce again what
has been done before is an important feature in the present study, where the aim of
debriefing is to make a past or an intended flight experience present so that it could
serve as a point of discussion.
The presence of an experience in the form of hand/arm and body movements
was an important aspect of those debriefing sessions where pilots came to make
present again previous experience. In some cases, these movements are exactly
those that can be observed while pilots are flying. Such movements have been
referred to as ergotic movements (gestes ergotic) that function as symbolic
movements when they are produced for communicative purposes (Cadoz, 1994).
Pilots knowing of flying is expressed in the movements from flying (Roth & Mavin,
2014). Other hand/arm movements clearly are symbolic in that these stand for
something else. Thus, for example, a first officer makes present the nosewheel
during a rejected takeoff by means of an arm/hand gesture, which first moves
forward and away from the pilot and then leads into a bent of the hand to the right,
as it would during right-hand turn. This movement preceded the actual name for the
event, nosewheel steering by 2 seconds, and was repeated together with the
naming. That is, even prior to the verbal representation, the event was made
present again by means of work-related (technically: ergotic) movements that
symbolize themselves or by iconic movements representing (symbolizing)
something else.
In this section, we present evidence of the role of hand/arm and body
movements in the practice of making present past experiences. We first provide
descriptive quantitative evidence of differences between airlines and then describe
the role of work-related, ergotic movements in the practice of making past events
present again.

Gestures: Summary Statistics

There is evidence that the frequency of gesturing may be associated to the
quality of assessment situations. One study investigating the ways in which pilots
assess their peers showed that flight examiners were first constructing overall
narratives prior to mapping the narrative onto an assessment metric; these
narratives were associated with a large number of hand movements characteristic

of those that a pilot executes while flying (Roth & Mavin, 2014). On the other hand,
regular line pilots (captains and first officers) tended to use the assessment metric
seeking information to rate a performance (sub-) category, which was associated
with significantly fewer hand/arm movements and symbolic gestures related to the
flight. The only existing empirical study of debriefing in aviation suggests that flight
examiners do most of the talking during debriefing sessions (Dismukes et al., 2000)
contrary to the recommendations of the FAA (2006). It may be supposed that a
higher number of opportunities for making past experience present again, whether
through presentation or representation, will be associated with more opportunities
to achieve turning what originally has been a flow of experience into an experience.
To investigate whether gesture use was the same in all participating airlines, we
conducted analyses of variance for descriptive purposes.
For the flight examiners, the ANOVA yields a significant effect (F(3,24) = 3.64, p <
.05). The post-hoc Tukey HSD test shows a significant effect at the = .05 level
between the airline A (M = 46.0, SD = 20.2) and airline B sessions (M = 8.5, SD = 7.5);
there were no effects in the comparison with and between airline C (M = 34.0, SD =
16.0) and D (M = 40.5, SD = 28.3). In contrast to the number of words per session on
the part of examined pilots, there was a significant effect for airline in the case of
pilot gestures per session (F(3, 24) = 3.25, p < .05). Based on a Tukey HSD test, only
the means between B (M = 3.2, SD = 2.8) and C (M = 18.0, SD = 8.5) differed, but not
those with and between A (M = 12.4, SD = 4.5) or D (M = 13.7, SD = 11.3). These
results suggest that in airline B there were fewer events that pilots and flight
examiners made present again by means of flight-related gestures than in at least
one other airline (low statistical power may have prevented true differences to
reach significance).
In our analyses, we also examined whether the relations observed would exist
when the time is controlled for, that is, when the gestures per unit time are
compared across the airlines. The analyses exhibit a statistically significant effect
(F(3, 24) = 3.07, p < .05). The Tukey HSD test shows that the airline A
(nMAPP/nDBT) sessions contained more gestures per unit time (M =1.93/min, SD =
0.27) than airline B (MAPP/nDBT) sessions (M =0.74/min, SD = 0.35); but there are
no differences with or between airline C (M =1.27/min, SD = 0.66) or D (M
=1.16/min, SD = 0.77) sessions. There is no significant effect for the gestures per
unit time produced by flight examiners or pilots independently. These findings
suggest that other than in the case of airline B, there appears to be no difference in
the number of gestures per unit time (but small statistical power may again have
prevented other true differences to be revealed).
The summary statistics suggest that in the one company where the abstract
model of assessing pilot performance was used, the incidence of gestures appears to
be much lower than in the other companies where narrative and video-mediated
accounting of past experience took place. Considerable variation was observed with
respect to the frequency of gestures used, depending on the kind of situation under
discussion. In the videotapes of the debriefing sessions, there are stretches with few
or no gestures altogether. On the other hand, often during extensive discussions
concerning issues where flight examiner and pilot were taking different positions,
flight-related gestures were used with considerably higher frequency.

Ergotic (Work-related) Hand / Arm and Body Movements

Presencing by means of ergotic movements Previous research shows that
hand/arm movements and movement sequences typical of flying an aircraft are
produced when flight examiners talk about what (actually or should have)
happened (Roth & Mavin, 2014). In this study, both pilots and flight examiners used
the same hand/arm and body movements that are observed when pilots fly the
aircraft. In the following situation, there had been a problem during the simulator
exercise. It involved a first officer with 7 years of experience as commercial pilot and
a total of 4,000 flight hours, and who had been in his current position for 1 year.
During a rejected takeoff (i.e., during acceleration for takeoff, the aircraft is brought
to a sudden halt on the tarmac because of a serious problem), he had forgotten to
execute one important step from the standard operating procedure: pushing the
control column forward to put pressure on the nosewheel. As the following
description shows, without assistance, the first officer did not make present again
what he had done in the simulator. It took the joint work of flight examiner and pilot
to bring the past to life again.
The flight examiner began by referring to the event (rejected takeoff) and then,
without other means of making the situation present again, provided the first officer
with an opportunity to identify the missing step. He then asked the first officer what
he was to do in such an event. The first officer began by saying that he had to
announce the failure, but his hand actually moved as it does when he is flying: it
cancels the warning light. He then started again, this time first articulating canceling
the warning light while making the identical hand/arm movement, before or while
announcing the failure: the hand moves twice, once with each action. Both actions
are part of the response to the event-prompting abort stated in the standard
operating procedures (Figure 4). In this case, the actions were present in the
hand/arm movement and in the announcement that actually occur in such an event;
these actions are not represented (i.e., by some other means) but precisely the same
manner as they are in the cockpit. Following a prompt, the first officer added having
had to contact air traffic control. The flight examiner said that he missed something
(turn 01), querying the actions that the captain is to take as an offer to get the
response started. But there was a long pause during which the first officer gazed
upward as if he were trying to remember (turn 02). In an apparent offer of
conversational repair to produce the intended reply, the flight examiner then asked
him for the actions of the captain during the particular event sequence associated
with an aborted takeoff (turn 03). As the standard operating procedures show
(Figure 4), it is in response to the captains announcement Stopping, your column,
my steering that the first officer was to announce taking over the column, which
entailed further actions to follow.


Fragment 52
01 FE: Okay (1.15) theres one thing you missed, thats more important than
contacting ATC ((air traffic control)).
02
(3.02)
03 FE: What is the captain doing when he takes over and says stopping?
04
(1.30)
05 FO: Hes uh ((hand moves forward to beginning of Figure 5a))
[reducing power (0.22) ]
[(gesture in Figure 5a)) ] to [ground idle and then reverse]

[((gesture in Figure 5b)) ].
06 FE: And whats he then need.
07
(1.58)
08 FO: Um (0.42) steering.
09
(3.30)
10 FE: Whats missing?
11
(3.35)
12 FO: [Oh um ] control column.
[((gesture in Figure 5c))]

When the first officer replied, one observes first the longer hand movement that
would take the power lever to the ground idle position before the action is named
(reducing power to ground idle) (Figure 5a). Then, simultaneously with naming
the next action and then reverse (turn 05), the hand exhibited a smaller movement
such as required to take the power lever from ground idle position to the reverse
position (Figure 5b). Finally, after two long pauses and two flight examiner prompts
as to the requirement (turn 06) and what was the missing item (turn 10), the first
officer moved the hand forward, as if pushing the control column, and then named
that feature: the control column (Figure 5c). In this situation, all hand/arm
movements were those that are required during the actual aborted takeoff case,
where they reduce the power to ground idle and put pressure on the nosewheel so
that there is sufficient traction for steering the aircraft on the ground.

Analysis In Fragment 5, it was in the sequence of turns that the appropriate
action came to be ascertained and confirmed, nose forward, with the rational for
this actions coming to be established in a turn pair. It took a 19-turn exchange
sequence until the first officer stated what was to be learned: during a rejected
takeoff, the first officer needs to hold the control column and, by pushing it forward,
put pressure on the nosewheel. The flight examiner made explicit that it was
through his questioning that he attempted to get [this point] deeper into [the first

2 Fragments 5 and 6 use standard conversation analytic conventions of transcription.
Pauses are measured in seconds and appear in parentheses (e.g., (1.15)); transcribers
comments appear in italics and between double parentheses (e.g., ((air traffic control)));
opening ([) and closing brackets (]) are used to indicate beginning and end of
overlapping speech or gestures.

officers] mind. To get to this point, the pair produced an extended sequence of
transactional exchanges. The episode shows both the problem of making an
experience present again and the practice of making it present in drawing on the
same movements that pilots enact while flying. These movements, therefore,
present themselves and are not represented in the sense of the termwhere we
would have another form standing in for something else. Here, the symbolic
movement is conflated with the work-related movement. The flight examiner then
summarized by first stating what the first officer had missed doing, and why he had
been asking the preceding questions: he emphatically noted that the first officer
must hold the control column and that he must push it forward to put pressure on
the nosewheel so that the captain has traction when steering. At this point, the
movement was present precisely in the way it would have to be should the pilot
experience again an aborted takeoff rather than mediated by means of a
representation.

The joint production of events and additional perspectives Whereas in some
situations pilots may actually name at least the overall movement (e.g., power up
that goes with the hand/arm movement that puts the power lever into the forward
position) others are inexpressible, such as the action required to recover an aircraft
from its abnormal attitude and returning it to its normal attitude. The flight
examiner addressed one of the test issues: flying the aircraft when the attitude is
unusual.

Fragment 6
01 FE: Okay unusual attitudes, good. Just remember once ((hands as in Figure 6a,
left)) [we actually come through the horizon ] ((hands as in Figure 6a,
right)

[((CAP hand movement as in Figure 6b)) ]

you can roll the wings level.
02 CAP: The wings level, yea, yea, smooth, yea.
03 FE: Yea, nice technique, correct technique, it was fine, but we can roll wings
level once through the horizon.

In this instance, the flight examiners narrative appeared to be a sufficient
stimulus to set of the pilots motion sequence (kinetic melody) required for steering
the aircraft in the simulator. His hand arm, configured as if holding a control column,
completed the movement that would return the aircraft to the level position of the
wing roll the wings level). The flight examiner twice made note of coming through
the horizon, that is, that the aircraft overshot the level position slightly and then
returned it to level where the wings would be level with the horizon as seen on the
gauge (electronic attitude director indicator). The sentence constructions were such
that they appeared as critiques. In the first occurrence, the flight examiner asked the
captain to remember that fact (turn 01); and in the second occurrence, the flight
examiner first provided a positive evaluation (nice technique, correct technique)
and then, using the contrastive conjunction but added rolling the wings through

the horizon once as something to be done. The movement itself (Figure 6), in the
absence of the aircraft and its attitude indicator, did not distinguish the situation
because it would be identical in its dynamic unfolding and orientation.

Analysis In Fragment 6, key aspects of dealing with an unusual attitude are
present: once in the form of iconic representations when the flight examiners hand
/ arm position first indicate the unusual attitude and then the attitude when the
wings are level and parallel with the horizon (Figure 6a). In the case of the captain,
the hand / arm movements are present, not by means of representations of the
actual flying, but as movements that stand for themselves (self-signifying ergotic
movements) (Figure 6b). In this instance, we observe the joint production of the
event in the different perspectives on the event that come to be played out. Whereas
the captains movements are those required to regain control over the aircraft and
to return it to its normal attitude, offering a first-person perspective, the flight
examiner articulated the associated third-person perspective by means of hand/arm
gestures that exhibit how the aircraft would present itself to the outside observer. In
the joint enactment of these two perspectives there emerges the possibility of a new
insight from the prior experience that now includes both.

The flight examiners reenact the pilots movements Similar to seeing themselves
on the video functioned reenactments on the part of the flight examiners, who used
hand/arm and body movements to present to pilots what they had or should have
done in the simulator. In both types of instances, the ability to correctly observe and
comprehend a movement is tied to the ability to correctly execute the movement, as
suggested by neuroscientific research concerned with mirror neurons (Rizzolatti,
Fogassi, & Gallese, 2008). The use of such movements leads to detailed accounts
including those movements that are characteristic of the work practices in the
cockpit. Thus, for example, one pilot in training was upset with the way he had acted
during a missed approach (i.e., aborted landing). At this point, the flight
examiner/trainer enacted the sequence of required hand/arm movements while
saying, its just, lift the latch (lifting gesture, Figure 7a), and as you start moving it,
release it. So it stops at the next point. Lift (Figure 7a), push (Figure 7b), and as you
push (Figure 7c), you release the latch (Figure 7d) again to that next. As in previous
studies (e.g., Roth & Mavin, 2014), the flight examiner enacted what should be done
when the examined pilots had not done correctly some action sequences. Moreover,
the flight examiners gestures are those of the pilot evaluated. That is, the flight
examiners gestures always were relative to the seat that the pilot had occupied
during the exercise. Of course, one may argue that the pilots do this out of habit. But
this is not (necessarily) the case as one can from the case of flight examiners, who,
when part of the examination, take the position complementary to the other pilot.
Thus, if the other examined pilot is a first officer, then the flight examiner will take
the captains seat; if the other pilot is a captain, the flight examiner will take the
right seat normally taken by a first officer. This was the case in two of the four
examinations with a flight examiner.


Discussion Previous research shows that even flight examiners do not recall
individual items from the standard operating procedures specifying how to fly in a
particular emergency situation (Roth & Mavin, 2014). Instead, triggered by some
event (a call, signal, environmental condition), a kinetic melodyexisting of
connected movements (e.g., turning dials, moving levers and switches) and
perceptionsis set off in the cockpit by some trigger and then unfolds on its own
without requiring conscious awareness of its constituent parts. The consequence of
this way of knowing is that pilots do not recall individual steps but instead, the
kinetic melody as a whole has to be set off for the event to be present again. Even
flight examiners do not recall individual parts of a movement sequence but have to
return to its beginning and then enact it as a whole (Roth & Mavin, 2014). In
Fragment 5, the one action that had been missing, as apparent from the flight
examiners critique, was the pressure on the nosewheel by means of a forward
movement of the control column (Figure 5c). The first officer apparently had
problems recalling what was missing. Here, the conversational repair is enacted by
means of a query | reply sequence that allows the first officer to get into the kinetic
melody. He produced the two required movements related to the power lever and
then the forward force onto the control lever. It is in the reproduction of the kinetic
melody of the cockpit as a wholeviewed here as a joint cognitive system
(Henriqson et al., 2011; Hutchins, 1995) that the missing item was made present
and, therefore, that an experience could emerge where it had not emerged before.
In the data presented here, an important aspect of presencing is observed: the
joint nature of piloting work. For example, in Fragment 5, what the standard
operating procedures state comes to be articulated and thereby made present in the
meeting in and through the joint work of pilot and flight examiner. For the first
officer it becomes present in and through the relation with the flight examiner. It is
the result of the transactional exchange, where the flight examiner scaffolds the
appearance by having the first officer also make present the captains part of the
kinetic melody related to an aborted takeoff, which would not normally be present
to the consciousness of the first officer. But once named, the next aspect in the
unfolding procedure would become apparent because of the pattern underlying the
whole event (the kinetic melody as a whole). In and as the result of the transaction
between flight examiner and first officer, the latter comes to name what was not
part of the simulator event but what should have been. That is, once the simulator
event and the contents of the standard operating procedure were present, the two
could be compared. The former then could become an experience that stood out
from the stream of experience to become, as the flight examiner states, something
that is back and deeper in the first officers mind.

TOOL-MEDIATED ASPECTS

In this section, we examine the ways in which the different tools and
representations mobilized in the different debriefing conditions are involved in
organizing the conversational sequences in which prior experience is made present
again during the debriefing sessions. These tools and representations include
personal notes and the model of assessment of pilot performance (MAPP), the

debriefing tool (video), the static cockpit poster, an action model telling pilots what
to in non-normal situations (FDODAR), the onboard manual, charts, and ad hoc
representations. Frequencies of use of these presentations and representations are
available in Table 3. The different tools and representations afford different ways in
which prior situations are made present again, entering differently in the
performances of kinetic melodies during the sessions. As seen throughout the
analyses, the debriefing situations typically involved the joint use of several of these
tools, assembling different presentational and representational means into
ecologies. Rather than exhaustively treating each, we exemplify the role of the
different tools and representations by focusing on three types: video presentations,
abstract representations; and flight-related tools and presentations.

Video

Video is possibly the most widely used means to make present again past events
for the purpose of reflection on practice and in learning science research (e.g.,
Goldman, Pea, Barron, & Derry, 2007); these also constitute the principle
multimedia means in debriefing sessions (Tannenbaum & Cerasoli, 2013). Video,
integrated with a number of flight instruments and representations recorded during
the simulation (Figure 3), became an important resource in the enactment of
presencing practices. Here we present a brief account on its relation to the
production of ergotic movements.

Video and the production of ergotic movements. With the debriefing tool, the copresence of multiple, simultaneous presentations and representationsincluding
videowas observed in the database. That is, the pilots saw themselves in the
situation of interest and had perceptual access to the instrumentation and to the
positions of key actuators (e.g., control column, power leavers). This configuration
was found to afford the enactment of kinetic sequences to make salient aspects of
prior experience during the debriefing situations. Here movements were made
present again in the same way as in the original and that were represented on the
display in the video and in the window that shows the position of the control
column. Sometimes it was the flight examiner who reproduced the movements seen
on the display, which cued the pilots to see the equivalent movement in the video. It
is precisely the relation between the enactment of the flight examiner and what can
be seen in the video that made these movements stand out as phenomenon. Thus,
for example, one first officer was leaning with his upper body in a particular way
during a left turn. The flight examiner likened the movement to riding a motorcycle.
This leaning over can be seen on the video, and the movement and body
configuration is even further highlighted repeatedly during the session when the
flight examiner moves as if he were making a left turn on a motorcycle.
In this situation, the video allowed the flight examiner to alert the pilots to their
past actions and to the different aspects on the instrument panel that they should be
aware of during the flight. The first officer had not been aware of his leaning. Here,
he was confronted with a replay of his action, which he now saw through the eyes of
a third person, and with a representation of what he had done in the flight

examiners body movements. That is, the video presented the pilots with a thirdperson perspective on their own actions and movements and with representations
of aspects of the cockpit. But there is more to the debriefing tool because it also
presents the pilots with the instruments in the same way that they had accessed
them in the simulator. The pilot saw now what and how they had perceived then. In
both instances, reading the attitude indicator or the airspeed indicator required the
same movements and practices.

Abstract Representations

In the debriefing sessions, the flight examiners from three airlines (B, D, E) used
two abstract representations. The first was the Model of Assessment of Pilot
Performance (Figure 2) is used to analyze and assess performance in terms of six
categories; the second is an action model that tells pilots in generic terms what to do
when an unusual event occurs: Fly the aircraft, Diagnose the problem, generate
Options, make a Decision, Assign tasks, and Review (Figure 8). Whereas an onboard
manual tells the pilots specifically what to do next, including reading a checklist
provided and doing the checks, the FDODAR model generically (i.e., abstractly)
applies to any unusual event from which the pilots have to safely extract the aircraft.
Both tools were used to map events that had occurred in the simulator. As the
following analyses exemplify, each of these abstract representations affords
presencing practices differently.

Mapping a performance to the FDODAR (action) model In 11 sessions, a model
for a diagrammatic representation featuring a model for managing abnormal was
used (Table 3). The frequency of use varied across airlines, as it was present in 1 of
6 airline B sessions (the company were few events were made present again), in 9 of
11 airline D sessions, and in 1 of 1 airline E session. It is referred to as FDODAR,
where each letter refers to a particular action to be taken when the pilots find
themselves in a non-normal [situation], that is, one that tends not be encountered
during regular line flights. When the tool was used, what the pilots had actually
done or what they should have done was explicitly mapped against the items that
feature in the representation. The following debriefing fragment typifies this
process. It starts with the flight examiner making reference to a specific event: an
engine stall after takeoff that turned into an engine failure (of one of the twin-engine
prop aircraft). The flight examiner then replayed the video using the debriefing tool,
watching together with the pilots what actually has happened.

Fragment 7
01 FE:
We then looked at that engines stall after takeoff that turned into an
engine failure. ((They watch the situation on DBT video.)) So before we
get too far along, lets just look at how we put the model in there. So
just run through ((points to fly the aircraft box in FDODAR model)),
[captain], how you handled that and how we used this. Because just
remembering, too, we dont expect you to go FDODAR. We want it to
02 CAP:
03 FE:
04 CAP:
05 FE:
06 CAP:
07 FE:
be natural and roll off, like you did then. So run through how you went
through that one there.
Well as I said, I was hand-flying to 3000 [feet] ((pointing to AP/Hand
fly, Figure 8)). ((Moves finger to item 2, speed)) Just speeds missed, I
think first officer came back with 138 [knots] later. I got him to set
[maximum continuous thrust] ((points to PWR MGT [power
management])) and talked about flap.
Yea, so that was good hey? So we got three out of the four ((back and
forth gestures over the list of items in the FDODAR model)). And then
through good communicating first officer came back and added the
other one in ((points to speed)). Would you consider taking the
autopilot on ((points to AP, autopilot in Figure)) for example?
Well, not from departure town, I can hand fly around therejust as
we mentioned before with the clouds.
Youre right, and around the hills there it is quite a concern, so
sometimes hand-flying is the only option. What about taking autopilot
on, what advantage would that do?
Well I could monitor. Is that what you mean?
Yea, it frees your workload up. But it also frees first officer up quite
a bit. So, and I totally agree, and around, sometimes theres some
situations where you dont want to use it, thats why we stipulate
autopilot on or off.

In this fragment, the flight examiner asks the captain, who was flying the aircraft
at the time, to run through what had happened.3 The captain placed his index
finger on the first item in the Fly the aircraft box of the model (Figure 8). While
doing so, he talks about hand-flying (as opposed to using autopilot) the aircraft to an
altitude of 3,000 feet (turn 02). He moves his finger down to the second item,
speed, and says, just speed missed, and then suggests with a hedge that the first
officer indicated the speed later. Here, the just speed missed flags that although he
is not yet done with the list, it was only that item that he had missed and not the
others that were yet to come. He then moves the finger to the third item, power
management (PWR MGT), while he recounts to have told the first officer to set
maximum continuous thrust (an aspect of power management), and ends his
account by saying that he had talked about flap, that is, the part of the wings that
can be extended and retracted to adjust for the lower speeds during landing and
takeoff. The flight examiner confirms that he had three of the four items, explicitly
indexing the fly the aircraft box and the list by means of a gesture with the pencil
that runs down the list (turn 03). He notes the missed item (speed) was added
because of a good performance in the communication category (see the MAPP
model, Figure 2, which was also used in this session). The flight examiner then
expanded the topic by asking the captain to consider whether using autopilot could

3 Independent of rank, captain and first officer fly sectors in the role of pilot flying (PF) or
pilot non-flying (NPF) (also pilot monitoring). The standard operating procedures specify
the actions that are to be completed by the pilot in the specific role.

have been an option in the particular event and what advantages this would be
associated with (turn 05). When the captain responds that he can hand-fly the
aircraft in that geographical situation, the flight examiner accepts that this is an
option and then asks the captain to consider using autopilot, orienting the recipient
specifically to the possible advantages of doing so. The captain states that this would
allow him to engage in monitoring activity, one of the sub-categories in the Aircraft
flown within tolerances category of MAPP used by the company. The examiner
elaborates by saying that it frees up the captains workload, another subcategory
from the MAPP tool, the quality of which was assessed during this session.

Analysis Presencing here is achieved through different modalities. In this
situation, we observe an explicit mapping of an event onto an action model.
Whereas the conceptual MAPP model explicates relations between human factors
categories without specifying what should be done in an actual situation, FDODAR is
an explicit model for action. In the fragment, it serves as a referent against which
actual performance is assessed. That is, the pilot first is given the opportunity to
watch what he has done (using the DBT tool) and then is asked to run through this
event in terms of the FDODAR model. The model therefore specifies and aids the
person pulling out from the experience those aspects consistent with the action
model. In so doing, the pilot is oriented towards his experience in a way that allows
him, and the other participants, to determine in which way that segment from the
simulator sessions is an experience. Here, the captain becomes (if he was not
already) conscious of the fact that he had missed noting the speed. That experience
is a negative exemplar, an experience that should not repeat itself. It not only is an
explicit aid in making aspects of an event present again, making these salient from
what has been a stream of impressions, but also is a tool to make present precisely
those aspects relevant to articulate that one property rather than another [that]
was sufficiently dominant so that it characterizes the experience as a whole
(Dewey, 1934/2008, p. 44).

Discussion In the case discussed here, the missing speed is that issue that is to
make this fragment stand out from the flow of experience sufficiently to be easily
remembered should the captain find himself in an abnormal situation again, not
only in the simulator but especially while on everyday duty. The captain then
stepped through the items with his finger and verbally articulated what he had done
and what he had not done. This bears similarity with the use of Munsell color charts,
where the users take an existing grid of whole-bearing pages, and seek a match
between a soil sample (Goodwin, 1994) or lizard (Roth & Bowen, 1999) and the
color that surrounds each hole. Simultaneously, the model also was used
projectively, suggesting what should be done in such situations should these occur
in the future. Here, the FDODAR model has the function of a referent against which
the otherwise continuous world comes to be ordered. It constituted, during analysis,
a technology that shapes professional vision. In the cases of the Munsell chart use,
the case (soil sample, lizard) and the representations are co-present. In fact, the
researcher looks at the case through the hole in the page from the booklet. In the
present situation, the pilots had to make the relevant experience present again so

that the equivalent condition existed for the purpose of making the comparison
between plan (FDODAR) and actual events.
The FDODAR model, therefore, functioned in the same way as other plans, even
when these are articulated in the verbal mode only: Plans function projectively,
orienting subjects to future situated actions with determining these and
retroactively, allowing the subject to account and evaluate whether the situated
action conforms with the plan (Suchman, 2007). With respect to future action,
FDODAR has normative quality because it constitutes a way in which the companies
using it, and the chief pilots on their behalf, implement constraints on what should
and will happenthough there is no guarantee, of course, whether any situated
action will subsequently be deemed to be consistent with the model. Indeed, the
pilots had been trained previously on behaving according to the model, but as the
present example shows, the captain still had not considered the speed as required
by the model. However, the acronym FDODAR is actually so explicit that it allows
discussion even without the representation present, as we have been able to
observe in many situations during our ethnographic work. Observations in the
simulator made it apparent that some pilots explicitly refer to the FDODAR model to
be enacted as soon as a non-normal event occurred. In the debriefing session, the
actual event could then be reviewed, retrospectively, as to its consistency with the
model. Thus, for example, by pointing to the word speed while saying an then
bring the other one in, the flight examiner in Fragment 7 allowed an explicit
connection to be made between the narrative account of experience, missing speed,
and the action model perceptually available to all participants in this meeting. That
is, there was an explicit connection between the list of actions required and the list
that appears in the model.
This relation was very different from that observed in the MAPP-related
instances in the MAPP/nDBT airline, where flight examiners tended to index events
(e.g., flight management system had to be reprogrammed) and then note
something like, your knowledge was good and you went through it flawlessly.
Three participating airlines used this human factors-based model of assessment of
pilot performance (MAPP, Figure 2). Unlike the FDODAR model, which provides
descriptions of types of actions to be taken, MAPP abstractly names types of
performances (skills). Flight examiners used it as a background to their talk,
indexically referencing it while talking about one of the categories named. Pilots
never pointed or gestured with respect to it. It had the sole purpose of making
perceptually present the model and its components that the examiners used to
evaluate. In the instance analyzed here, a category from the MAPP, namely good
communicating, is indexed to the sequence of actions being recollected (turn 03).
The abstract category, thus, comes to be useful after a particular kinetic melody,
mediated by the used of the FDODAR action model, has been set in motion.

Flight-Related Presentations

In many debriefing sessions artifacts from the simulator session were used,
including onboard manuals, on-route charts, and approach plates (containing
landing information) (Table 3). Present in both simulator and debriefing settings,

they provided for similar occasions of available things; and such availability is
integral to and constitutive of experience (No, 2013). Analogical in function were
the instruments displayed by means of the debriefing tool but associated with the
same orienting and reading practices that characterize the actual situations when
pilots are flying at work or in the simulator; these are therefore considered as
proxies for the real thing rather than representations thereof. We exemplify the role
of presentations with an episode in which aviation charts as a means to engage in
the same presentational modes that are characteristic of the flight itself.

Using a chart again Charts are an integral part of flying. In the debriefing
sessions recorded here, participants used or referred to charts in presentational
formi.e., the official charts from the civil aviation authority or the charts
appearing on the debriefing tool; or they referred to them as representationsi.e.,
as charts printed out from the simulator session or charts drawn on the whiteboard.
Flight examiners tend to use pen, index finger, or cursor to follow the path of the
aircraft on the chart while narrating or discussing with pilots relevant flight-related
events. Thus, for example, in the following fragment, the participants have oriented
to a chart to discuss the events during the approach to a specific airport with the
runway marked by its orientation (RW04, i.e., 040 on the wind rose) (Figure 9).
This chart is part of an approach plate that provides a pilot with all information
required for conducting a safe approach to and landing at an airport. These provide
a pilot a (a) top birds eye view of the airport and surrounding terrain; (b) safe
track an aircraft can follow to avoid high terrain and other air traffic, such as
departing aircraft; (c) vertical profile that assists a pilot in determining appropriate
times to descend during an approach; (d) variety of radio frequencies for both
ground-based navigation equipment and air traffic control communication; and (e)
specific notes applicable to an airport. Even small airports can have as many as ten
approach plates, with large city airports having in excess of twenty plates. Each pilot
must carry a suite of approach plates for all possible airports they may use during
normal and possible emergency situations. Whereas these charts traditionally are
held in a binder, some pilots and examiners access these charts in electronic form on
tablets.
In this fragment, the flight examiner discusses with the two pilots the particulars
of the approach that they had flown. As the examiner talks about the arrival of the
aircraft, he indexes the waypoints (e.g., ESNUP, KAGRU), positions between these
waypoints, and the altitude information provided. He points out that setting the
required (altitude) minima early on decreases the pilots workload on the
KAGRU/NILIB section, which is the flight segment just prior to making the final
descent.4

4 For example, during an approach, the pilots set the altitude that the aircraft has to attain in
the event that the landing has to be aborted (e.g., because of poor visibility). If the pilots
were to leave setting this altitude to a later point during the approach, they would thereby
increase their workload at that point in time.

Fragment 8
01 FE: So we came in 0-4, thats right, so we came in from out here to ESNUP, so
from out here to ESNUP ((points to ESNUP, Figure 9). Then we came
around ((points to KAGRU star, Figure 9)) and on the approach. Now when
we first started doing [area navigation] approaches we said you cant set
minima until youre actually established inbound. Now, were allowing
you to set minima at now ((points to 2000 between ESNUP (IAF) and
KAGRU, Figure 9)). And, so thats the beginning of the T-transition ((points
to T-transition at KAGRU, Figure 9)), which is exactly the same as where
we set it going in to other city. And it just reduces that workload
around there ((points to KAGRU/NILIB, Figure 9)).
02 FO: Which is what happened. We had to catch it, didnt we? It was just enough
to make you a hundred feet too high.

As the aircraft approaches an airport, there is a critical point at which pilots have
to make the decision whether to land or whether to announce a missed approach
leading to a go-around. This point is given in terms of the minimal descent altitude.
This altitude, which the aircraft reaches a little over 1 nautical mile prior to the
airport, has to be set in the advisory display unit. The instruction here pertained to
setting the minimum between ESNUP and KAGRU rather than between KAGRU and
NILIB, when the pilots are busy getting the aircraft ready for the first part of the
landing procedure.

Analysis In instances such as that featuring in Fragment 8, flight-relevant
materials were used in a retrospective manner, where the participants produced an
account of what had happened, why, and what should be happening. However, as
seen in the fragment, the chart itself was a presentation, it stood for itself. Reading it
requires the same cognitive orientation whether it is perused on the aircraft, in the
simulator, or in the debriefing session. In terms of the flight, such presentations
serve as plans in two ways (Suchman, 2007)i.e., retrospectively what the aircraft
and cockpit have done and prospectively orienting the pilots to what they will have
to do in future situations. The chart in this instance contained what the pilots used
to plan their arrival. That is, during the flight, the map was projectively organizing
what was to be done. During the debriefing session, it was used as part of the
narrative to make present again that segment of the flight currently under
discussion. It was presentation and representation simultaneously, because the
pilots do what they do when they read the map and they use it to make present
again that flight organized by means of the map. Critical phases of the flight in terms
of the non-technical aspects of performance are mapped against the trajectory of the
aircraft. This was the case when the flight examiner pointed to the location on the
flight path where the workload was high, and where the gesturally enacted changes
in the IAF. These gestures are not arbitrary but enact precisely those movements
in time and spacethat a pilot enacts while changing the setting of the minima on
the IAF. At the end of turn 03, the flight examiner pointed to the KAGRU/NILIB part
of the map to discuss the fact that the pilots ought to set their screens (ARC and MAP

mode) to alternate displays so that they would have maximum information
available.

Discussion Onboard manuals were among the flight-related tools that mediated
the production of accounts during the debriefing meetings. Typical artifacts from
the cockpit, such as the flight crew operating manual (FCOM), the quick reference
handbook (QRH), the landing speed chart, and the takeoff data sheet. In the
debriefing meetings, these were generally used as aids in making present again
some event, especially in sessions without the debriefing tool. All of these were used
in ways requiring the same kind of reading practices that they would have during
the actual flight.
In the sessions where the debriefing tool was available, the participants directly
referred to what one or the other instrument displayed during the flight. As
participants were gazing at the instruments, they saw (again) what these had shown
in the simulator and now was showing again on the debriefing tool. The instruments
thereby were available to the same reading practices that also unfolded during the
flying. The participants did not have to represent what they had seen; they not only
read what presented itself but also knew where to go to find if they were need some
information (Agre & Horswill, 1997). The presence of the instruments featuring
what they had featured in the simulator session then afforded specific instruction on
a particular issue. The cockpit poster present in all debriefing rooms provided
similar affordances in some situations. It is a photorealistic representation of the
instrument and overhead panels, the pedestal (between pilots, e.g. containing power
and flap levers), and the lateral panels. It is nearly identical with the representations
that can be found throughout one of the manufacturers manual for normal
procedures intended to be used as flight crew training manual. In the recorded
debriefing sessions, these cockpit posters were used and referred to, for example,
when a pilot could not name some part or could not remember some operational
sequence. Standing in front of the poster, pilots or flight examiner could point to
such parts or enact a movement sequence over and about the representation. This
photographic (iconic) representation of the cockpit layout then had a similar
function in making an event present again as the turn-taking sequence in Fragment
5.

DISCUSSION

This study was designed to investigate, in the context of aviation debriefing
meetings, how professionals (here pilots) make past events present again for the
purpose of turning what has been part of a generally inchoate stream of experience
into an experience that by definition stands out to serve as referent in future
experience. It is only in the case of an experience that there is something that can be
used to act differently in the future: experience has led to learning (Dewey,
1934/2008). In this study, we show how presentations and representations mediate
the production of what will have been an experience. Although we investigate
representations, the questions we address are very different from those pursued in
classical representation research, which tends to investigate how participants solve

some form of researcher-posed problem using different diagramse.g., finding the
date and time in different parts of the world using a time zone map or a circle
diagram (Schnotz & Krschner, 2008). We found two major ways in which the
debriefing sessions were mediated. First, during the debriefing meetings,
participants used different forms of representations (in the classical sense) with and
over which they articulated verbal accounts of what had happened during the
preceding 4-hr simulator session. These included, for example, video showing the
pilots at work, a cockpit poster, an action model in the form of a flow chart with a
sequence of action types to be enacted during an abnormal situation, or a
conceptual, human factors-derived model of pilot performance. Second, aspects of
the previous event were made present again in the same way that they had been
present in the original event. This included, for example, the quick reference
manual, charts, or instruments (by proxy). Perhaps more importantly, while
enacting other parts of flying that had been used (seen to be used) during the event
pilots and examiners moved their hands, arms, and bodies in precisely the same
way. In this situation, we actually observe aspects of an event experienced again;
and it may be this duplication that underlies comprehension. Neuroscientists,
referring to the phenomenological tradition, suggest that one had to experience
something within oneself to truly comprehend it (Rizzolatti et al., 2008, p. 13).
Moreover, the same neuroscientific research shows that the recognition of a
movement is based on having experienced the movement before, which is also what
allows humans to conclude the underlying intentions and emotions. The present
data show quite clearly the need to experience (aspects of) an event again as means
to learn from it. This was especially the case in situations where pilots felt having to
walk to or use some representation before they could articulate, in word or by
means of indexical or iconic gesture, the way they had or should have acted. In the
following, we discuss the present findings along three dimensions: assessment for
professional development, kinetic melodies and kinesthetic memory, and objects
and the presencing of experience.

Assessment for Professional Development

The purpose of the simulator sessions and the associated debriefing meetings is
assessment of experienced performance for learning, that is, for improving
performance in future situations experienced. Pilots are to learn from practicein
todays high-fidelity full motion simulators, flying is almost identical to flying a real
aircraftfor practice. The assessment in aviation differs from that in formal
education, where students tend to be tested on what they are supposed to have
learned in some course. In the simulator sessions, the pilots are subjected to flight
situations that they rarely if ever encounter during their regular work. Pilots are not
only tested but also expected to get ready for unexpected non-normal events only
experienced during their time in the simulator. Despite the unusual nature of the
task situations, poor performance will lead to negative consequences, such as being
taken off line for retraining and, in rare cases, dismissal. Filled with incidence after
incidence, the testing regime is so intense that the pilots emerge from the simulator
with the sentiment that the preceding 4 hours have left but a blur. That is, although

pilots might perform efficiently, aware of the demands of the situation, they often
have not been aware of what has happened in the sense of an experience, in which
case they would say something like that was an experience (Dewey, 1934/2008, p.
43). In such cases, activity is too automatic to permit a sense of what it is about and
where it is going (p. 45). Thus, if more than implicit learning is to occur, some of
this inchoate experienceevidently lived through by means of material (corporeal)
practicehas to be made present again so that it can become an object of conscious
awareness and reflection.
The present study shows that there are two modes of experience. In one,
debriefing meetings constitute situations in which pilots reflect on preceding
experience, where the previous experience itself becomes an object of the present
debriefing experience. On the other hand, when the pilots do again during the
debriefing meeting what they have done before, then the associated experience is
not of reflective nature (i.e., about previous experience). Instead it is of the same
kind that it has been in the simulator. In both situations pilots are confronted with,
and perceive, some presentation invoking the same kind of forms of availability
characterizing flying.
In the debriefing meetings, presentations (original artifacts from the cockpit)
and representations have a special role in the presencing of previous experience.
Why might this be so? There are suggestions that [c]onceptual skills, along with
sensorimotor skills and other kinds of understanding, belong to the means by which
we accomplish perceptual contact with reality (No, 2013, p. 186). If some of the
artifacts from the cockpit are present in the debriefing room, requiring perceptual
contact, this might then become the basis for producing the conceptual and
sensorimotor skills and kinestheses that also operated during the preceding
simulator flight and are recognized. The phenomenon has been discussed under the
name of corporeal memory, a concept that allows us to understand the shift from
inchoate experience to an experience. Corporeal memory and the replaying of
events that occurs when pilots and examiners engage the movements and
orientations of actual flying evoke the corporeal affective-volitional aspect of
experience, which is indissociable from lived experience itself (Dewey, 1938/2008;
Vygotskij, 2005).
To learn from practice for practice requires the presence of previous experience
in subsequent experience. The purpose of debriefing practice is experiential
learning, which requires the presencing of past experience so that it can be
described and reflected on. Just as the appreciation of art requires the recreation of
the object on the part of the spectator (Dewey, 1934/2008), the appreciation of a
previous experience requires its presence achieved in the process of presencing. In
the experiential learning model, the description (observation) and reflection of past
experience is followed by the formation of abstract concepts and generalizations
that lead to implications for new situations (Kolb, 1984). However, this may overintellectualize practical experience, which never is intellectual or practical alone, but
always intellectual and practical bound up with affect. Conceptual models of
performance are sufficiently removed from performance that they no longer assist
pilots in coping with difficult and unexpected situations. Action-oriented models, on
the other hand, not only allow describing and reflecting upon what pilots have done

but also constitute general plans for action sequences to come. Because
experiencing like breathing is a rhythm of intakings and outgivings (Dewey,
1934/2008, p. 62), presencing experience therefore means constituting a context in
which the same rhythms of intaking and outgiving are solicited giving rise to the
feeling of remembrance. There is therefore a close relation between past (flying),
current (presencing flying in debriefing), and future (flying) experience: practice,
practice, practice.
The present study shows that flight examiners dominate in the accounting of
previous experienceeven though some pilots accompanied the examiners
accounts by moving through (parts of) the action sequences currently narrated.
Much like the videotapes available in the debriefing tool, the enactment of kinetic
melodies on the part of flight examiners allows pilots to see through the eyes of
observers what they had done. On the other hand, if the presence of past experience
in current experience really is central, pilots themselves might have to participate in
the presencing of their past performance. Debriefing meetings might have to shift
the emphasis from the flight examiner to the pilots, whose accounting then
contributes to producing the above-noted chain of repetitions: practice, practice,
practice.
The fact that the flying needs to be understood in terms of a joint cognitive
system presents a challenge to making events present again, because the actions of
any part of the whole system depend on each other and on the overall system flow
like the melodies of different instrument in a musical composition (Roth et al.,
2014). Making an event present again may require the presence of the other parts as
well, or it may not be remembered and rendered present by the individual pilot.
This is especially the case because what has been done or needs to be done is
present in terms of the associated coordinated bodily movementsas seen in the
turn 12 of Fragment 5 where the movement was associated with the pulling back of
the power lever precedes the (verbal) naming of the action. The action was present
before it was named (verbal representation). The announcement My column and
the action of taking over, though it had followed the captains announcement,
initially were not present again during the debriefing session. They became present
only when the flight examiner asked for the articulation of the captains actions,
which, in the kinetic melody of the cockpit as a whole, would then entail specific
responses on the part of the first officer. Once the use of the control column is
present, the real problem can be articulated: the missing pressure that would have
produced the positive nosewheel contact stated in the procedures.

Kinetic Melodies Constitute Kinesthetic (Corporeal) Memory

In this study, we observed a large number of hand/arm and body movements
characteristic of flying this particular aircraft with instruments and actuators (e.g.,
control column or power levers) in their specific place. The flight examiners
produced most of these. But when the pilots did account for what they had done,
they also produced such movements. In such cases, the distinction between past and
present (experience) comes to be indistinct, because the same forms of hand/arm
and body movements and orientations take place. Our ongoing ethnography in

aviation generally and of debriefing particularly shows that pilots tremendously
appreciate opportunities of getting involved in the making present of their past
experience, which they tends to lead to a vivid presence of the past. In such
situations, participants observed or lived experienced kinetic events (SheetsJohnstone, 2009). This notion captures Deweys idea that each aspect of life has its
own overall, particular rhythmic movement leading to an unrepeated quality
permeating experience as a whole, including sounds and their intensities (SheetsJohnstone, 2010). The notion of kinetic melody (Luria, 1973) captures that dynamic
aspect of life generally and of the performance of a cockpit specifically (Roth et al.,
2014). Kinetic melodies are not brain events but, in a living experiential sense, inthe-flesh dynamic patterns of movement that are initiatedand run off (SheetsJohnstone, 2009, p. 255). Capturing aspects of the setting, human agents, and affect,
kinetic melodies therefore are similar to a form of bodily memory that has been
called situational memory (Fuchs, 2012). The recurrent movement of kinetic
melodies constitutes a form of memory that does not require representations,
because the movement presents itself (Henry, 2000; Maine de Biran, 1959a, 1959b;
Sheets-Johnstone, 2011). The memory of a sensation is the sensation itself in the
process of beginning to be (Bergson, 1939). External objects are experienced where
they are rather than within the person (Bergson, 1939; Fuchs, 2012). These are part
of a system of images associated with the world. The present study shows that the
use of artifacts in debriefing meetings that were present in the original event, it
appears to facilitate the bodily presencing of experience, which thereby is made
available as object to be discussed and reflected on.
Presencing might have an important role in learning from cockpit simulator
experience because the salience of former perceptions and experience are a function
of present perceptions, themselves related to the actions to be accomplished in the
future (Bergson, 1939). The movement of memory at work . . . carries memory
back so to speak into a region of presence similar to that of perception (Ricur,
2000, p. 63). Whereas a mental schema (representation) alone is but a sketch in the
consciousness of the person, fully experienced muscular sensations that come with
the actual movement and affective shading, bring color and life to the remembered
event. Bergsons color and life appear to have the same function as the vividness
that characterizes an experience. The corporeal playing out of past experience is an
important aspect of debriefing, because the body acts as a crucial site for
commemoration (Middleton & Brown, 2005, p. 136), making kinetic melodies key
mediators in the recollection of experience. It is in and through the bodily
involvement that experience is (materially) preserved for the future. More strongly,
it is the flesh that constitutes an immemorial memory because it remembers,
without requiring mediation, past movements and the kinestheses that come with
them (Henry, 2000; Sheets-Johnstone, 2009). This is consistent with the cognitive
analysis of how a cockpit calculates, remembers, and forgets speeds suggests kinetic
melodies to be like multi-instrument performances, which, in the context of flying,
consist of an irreducibly joint cognitive system of (automated) pilots, instruments,
and effectuators (Roth et al., 2014). This articulation takes into account the ways in
which experience has been theorized, that is, as unit of environment, person, and
emotion (Dewey, 1934/2008; Vygotskij, 1935/2001).

In the debriefing meeting, flight examiners and pilots contribute to the
presencing of past experience. The debriefing meeting itself is experienced, relating
to the simulator as a job interview relates to job performance (Dewey, 1938/2008).
The more kinetic melodies are present, the closer the relationship between the two
experiences. In the same way as Deweys interview, the debriefing may be
mechanical, consisting of sets of questions, the replies to which perfunctorily settle
the matter (p. 49). But this would not be an experience, one in which the
participants meet; the situation would be an exercise in bookkeeping. If the
debriefing session were completely reduced to a conceptual account of what
happened, there would be little gain for the pilots in terms of learning for the future.
Like Deweys interview, the debriefing session may also lead to an interplay that is a
true experience. This happens when the interplay projects the flight examiner
imaginatively into the work to be done and judges the fitness by the way in which
the elements of the scene assemble and either clash or fit together (p. 50).
In a debriefing meeting, memorable experience is extracted from what has been
more-or-less inchoate experience. The process of reproducing an action (aspect of
practice) opposes itself to mental memory and knowledge, because the
reproduction transcends consciousness and expression (Bourdieu, 1980). In
practice, we do not memorize the past: We act out the past, which comes to be
annihilated as we relive it. What we have learned through bodily engagement is not
something that we have but is something that we are. Corporeal memory appears to
have a special role in the transition. This is so because in corporeal memory, the
body is event and experience, tying together space and time held together by human
action (Ricur, 2000). The first dissociation between space and time comes with the
association of experience and places where events have taken place. The things we
remember are tied to these places, which in turn are constituted by the things.
Things and memory places become reminders, places where the corporeal memory
brings to life again what may have been forgotten. Thus, through the memory of
things in space pilots are enabled to recover the sense of spatiality associated with
their practical actions on the job and in the simulator (see below).

Objects and the Presencing of Past Experience

In this study, we describe and theorize the function of presentations and
hand/arm and body movements as an integral dimension to the making present of a
past experience. In taking up their place in the kinetic melodies that describe the
ebb and flow of actions, flight examiners and pilots take the relevant place in the
cockpit populated with material or virtual instruments and actuators. The special
function of the presentations and representations derives from the fact that they are
available and thus shape experience so that we should think of what is experiences
as what is available to a person, as what is available to a person from a place (No,
2013, p. 178). The debriefing meeting then serves as a second type of simulation,
where aspects of a previous situation are played out again. This study shows that
recollection of past simulator events tends to occur with the perception of an object
associated with the previous experience. Presentations have a special role because
current experience is constituted by what is immediately given and present mixed

with past experience (Bergson, 1939). When something is seen as a specific thing,
perception has become an occasion for remembering. Objects surrounding us
constitute, to a greater or lesser degree, actions that we may accomplish with or
upon the objects or that we have to undergo coming from the objects. To be a point
of discussion between pilots and examiners, the past event has to be present again
for all of them. The presentations and representations foster the process of joint
remembering, in which the flight examiner assists in the presencing of past
experience.
The role of objects in presencing past experience has been captured in a French
novel focusing on the remembrance of things past (Proust, 1919) that Middleton
and Brown (2005) also discuss because of its relevance to the social psychology of
objectified experience. In the novel, the protagonist undergoes an experience of
presencing as he takes into his mouth a spoon of tea in which a morsel of cake is
dissolved. This experience actually ignores and erases the distinction between
perception and memory dear to Bergson (Middleton & Brown, 2005). The artifacts
become integral to the project of joint remembering during debriefing of events
pertinent for the future actions of the pilots. The representations used in the
debriefing room are such objects that constitute an integral part of the joint
remembering in which flight examiners engage with pilots. Presentations, acting
alone or in presence of the things from the cockpit, lead to a more active process of
remembering than drawing on objects from memory. Pilots know flying in the way
we know how to write: The hand . . . feels the letter form in the very process of their
production rather than as finished objects and remembers them as gestures, not as
shapes (Ingold, 2011, p. 188). Memory returns precisely when they pilots are in a
situation where their parts in the overall kinetic melodies are triggered in the ways
our hands are triggered to set of writing words or signing in a single flowing
movement instead of in the seriation of separate elements.
The notion of availability is central to more recent psychological and
philosophical ideas about perception and experience, which holds that the scope of
experience is a matter of what is available to us (No, 2013, p. 178). Availability in
essential ways is a function of what is and what we can do; in turn, what is and what
we can do depends on what is available to the person (Gibson, 1986). From this
perspective, then, the presence of representations (cockpit poster, MAPP, or
FDODAR) and presentations (charts, maps, or proxy instruments) in the debriefing
meetings changes what is possible as experience because they change what is
available. Crucially, they change how (aspects of) past experiences can be made
present again for the purpose of reflection, assessment, and learning for future
experience. This is so because every experience is the result of interaction between
a live creature and some aspect of the world in which he lives (Dewey, 1934/2008,
p. 50). Making an experience present again, in the context of aviation, means that the
interaction between pilots and aspects of the world in which they live need to be
present. Here presentations and representations have their role in facilitating the
process of presencing.
The presentations and many of the representations constitute physical
presences. Much like a mnemonist may recall items when these are associated with
images of walking through some part of the city or a landscape (Luria, 1968),

aspects of past experience are themselves present again (rather than represented in
some way). These objects are part of localizing the past in the present (Middleton &
Brown, 2005), as the presentations and certain representations contribute to come
to be objectified in and by these artifacts. This occurs not merely in narrative terms,
as in the examples that these authors provide, but in material terms identical to or
proxy of the material aspects of the original experience. The physical aspects
gestures and movements identical to pilots skilled practical actionsconstitute the
bodily ground upon which the commemoration occurs. The cockpit poster, for
example, is one artifact that allows the pilots to become committed to or recruited
into past experience by attending to the features of the cockpit as a place of action.
The data presented here suggest that these objects may be divided into different
categories with different functions in the presencing of past experience: conceptual,
action, and circumstantial models. Conceptual models, such as MAPP, are removed
from the actual practice of flying providing a means to categorize performance
aspectse.g., situation awareness, including the subcategories of perception,
comprehension, and projectionand to explain actual performance by means of the
connections between the categories. Thus, a flight examiner might explain that a
lack of familiarity with the procedures (knowledge category) increased the pilots
workload (management category) leading to a decrease in situation awareness. The
MAPP constitutes a conceptual model that describes, at a considerably abstract level
similar to the knowledge domains and clusters that are used in the Programme for
International Student Assessment (OECD, 2010). But much of experience is not
concerned with such classification and connections (Dewey, 1934/2008). Just as
knowing that a particular item comes from the space and shape cluster does not
help a student to solve a problem, MAPP does not directly help pilots solve a
problem they encounter during flight. On the other hand, an action model does
suggest what to do next. FDODAR and similar models provide sequences of actions
that pilots have to do or series of objects to attend to (as in power, attitude,
configuration). These constitute frameworks for evaluating whether the actual
sequences of actions in the simulator corresponded to the models and where, if the
case, problems arose for the purpose of becoming better (e.g., already on the
following, second day of assessment) at performing such that the model accurately
describes what pilots have done. The difference between a conceptual model and an
action model is embodied by the use of nouns and verbs, respectively. These
constitute different ways in which abstract and action models relate to past and
future experience, because the latter are tied to the movements of the pilots in
relation to the material and social world surrounding them while doing their job.
The third category of representations consists of artifacts that stand for aspects
of the cockpit such that pilots may act out what they have or should have done. This
was clearly observed in the case of the cockpit poster, which, when used, served as a
ground with respect to which pilots and flight examiners oriented and moved as if
they were in the actual cockpit. One can see similarities with the different ways in
which simulation and paper-and-pencil testing situations relate to actual
performance in grocery shopping (Lave, 1988). Here, for shoppers and dieters, the
simulations had a closer relationship and greater authenticity with actions during

actual shopping experience than paper-and-pencil tasks, corresponding in our
situations to action and conceptual models of actual flying experience.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:
ASSESSING FOR DEVELOPING PRACTICE

Practice inherently develops practiceleading to professional development
without reflection so that even the most boring job brings about distinguishable
levels of performance (e.g., Maine de Biran, 1859a, 859b; Lee & Roth, 2005;
Marx/Engels, 1962). However, this mode of learning does not work in aviation,
where the pilots hardly ever encounter on their regular jobs the kinds of events that
jeopardize the safety of the aircraft. But they are expected to exhibit sufficiently high
performances if an unlikely event were actually occurring. The biannual simulatorbased assessments constitute possible learning experiences for the pilots, especially
because they are confronted and gain practice in dealing with non-normal events.
This is to prepare them should they ever be confronted with such a non-normal on
their regular job. In many sessions, particularly in B and C, the flight examiners
point out that the debriefing itself is to constitute an opportunity for learning. Thus,
they might say to the pilots, Im wanting to be constructive about [the simulator
session] so you can get something out of it, help develop skills for the future, I
want you to have a look through on this video and just see if you can pick things; and
be critical so that you can learn for the future, What are you going to write down
and take away from today and learn? or Id love to see you learn from some of the
mistakes today.
What matters in this study are not some theoretical models about the way the
mind functions. Instead, we are interested in the ways in which practitioners
generally and pilots specifically make experience present again for the purpose of
learning for future experience. What matters is the intensity of their experience. The
research should directly lead to ways of informing the practice of debriefing so that
future practice will turn out to be improved over current practice. Because
experience is felt before it represented (something made more thematic by the
Russian pereivanie), what matters to pilots is a change in the way it feels to fly in
critical situation rather than knowing about the abstracted and abstract relations
between different dimensions of performance. In the context of our own
collaborative endeavors with the airlines involved, the findings of this study have
already influenced the decision-making with respect to the training of flight
examiners. Together with the workshop leader (third author), the flight examiners
evolved a model that would allow pilots to be more involved in the recreation and
analysis of salient events, facilitated by the flight examiner, who assists pilots in
making present those that they had identified as requiring more urgent
improvements.
The question might be raised whether there are other professions to which the
results might apply, and what the type and nature of these professions is. The
practice of debriefing is already common and has history in military-, medical-,
organizational training-, education-, human factors-, and safety-related fields
(Tannenbaum & Terasoli, 2013). This meta-analytic study led to the hypothesis that

some form of multi-media aid, generally video, will make debriefs more effective
than if these aids are not used. But the review of the literature suggests that there is
no evidence that multimedia aids lead to improvement in debriefing effectiveness.
The present study provides an in-depth analysis of a variety of objects that mediate
the presencing of past experience. Our analysis provides suggestions why some of
these might be anticipated to be more effective than others for improving practice
over producing better conceptual understanding of pilot performance. Thus, when
the pilots experience again the (collective, distributed) kinetic melodies of the past
experience, the associated presencing will lead to richer and more deeply
articulated accounts of what happened, which, through reflection, may be made
relevant for future (often next-day) performances. We might anticipate that for each
of the fields, there will be a range of presentations and representations.

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