Operator's Guide to Human Factors in Aviation

Human Personal Qualities

Pilot judgment and expertise

Briefing Note

1 Background

This briefing note discusses two closely related topics: pilot judgment and pilot
expertise. It begins with definitions of key terms. It then describes specific
perceptual-motor and cognitive skills that can be learned and used to improve pilot
judgment and thereby enhance pilot expertise.

2 Definitions

There are both general dictionary definitions of judgment and expertise and more
specific definitions provided by researchers and regulatory authorities. The dictionary
definitions may be thought of as one-dimensional because they apply to any usage
of the terms. When the notion of aviation is added to the one-dimensional definitions,
more specific terms such as pilot judgment and aeronautical decision making
emerge. These may be thought of as multi-dimensional or domain-specific
definitions.

2.1 Judgment

Defining judgment is not a simple task. Difficulty arises when trying to distinguish
among judgment, decision making, pilot judgment and aeronautical decision making.
The terms are often used interchangeably. However, Hunter (2003) differentiates
among them by introducing the concept of dimensionality as follows:
One-dimensional definitions:

Judgment (dictionary) — the power to arrive at a wise decision or conclusion on the

basis of indications and probabilities when the facts are not clearly ascertained.

Decision making (dictionary) — the act of determining in one’s own mind the most
suitable opinion or course of action.
Multi-dimensional definitions:

Pilot judgment (Jensen 1995) — the mental process we use in making decisions:

Rational judgment — the ability to discover and establish the relevance of all
available information relating to problems of flight, to diagnose these
problems, to specify alternative courses of action and to assess the risk
associated with each alternative.

Motivational judgment — the motivation to choose and execute a suitable

course of action within the available time frame. The choice could be either
action or no action, and “suitable” is a choice consistent with societal norms.

Aeronautical decision making (U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, 1991) — a

systematic approach to the mental process used by aircraft pilots to consistently
determine the best course of action in response to a given set of circumstances.

Jensen (1995) defines pilot judgment in terms of a pilot’s skill repertoire, knowledge
and motivation to choose a “suitable” course of action. Similarly, the FAA’s definition
of aeronautical decision making includes both process and outcome components.
Hunter (2003) argues that pilot judgment and aeronautical decision making can be
used interchangeably to represent the multi-dimensional nature of these concepts in
the aviation world while the one-dimensional definitions of judgment and decision
making, while applicable, do not express the complexity of the concepts in an
aeronautical environment.

This briefing note adopts the multi-dimensional definition of pilot judgment. Under
this definition, a pilot’s expertise (skills and knowledge) can influence his or her
judgments. This is consistent with general research, which supports the idea that
experts make better judgments. Later, this BN discusses how training pilots to make
good judgments is important in enhancing expertise.

Good pilot judgment requires the ability and motivation to:

Discover and establish the relevance of all available information relating to

problems of flight

Diagnose problems

Specify alternative courses of action

Assess the risk associated with each alternative

Choose and execute a suitable course of action within the available time
(Jensen, 1995)
2.2 Expertise

Expertise is “special skill or knowledge,” and an expert is “a person who has special
skill or knowledge in some particular field.” Traditionally, the number of flight hours
and years of flying experience have been considered to be sufficient indicators of a
pilot’s level of expertise. It is now known that flying experience alone may not be
enough to define an individual as an expert pilot. Research has shown that in order
to become an expert in virtually any domain, an individual must engage in extensive
and deliberate practice (about four hours per day) over an extended period of time
(usually 10 years or more) on a specific task or a skill set. Evidence suggests that a
general predisposition to engage in deliberate practice appears to be the most
distinguishing characteristic of “experts.”

Pilots’ Definition of an “Expert Pilot”

Pilots defined an expert pilot as one who is highly motivated, confident (but not
overconfident), has superior learning and performance skills, applies those skills in a
changing environment and possesses a type of judgment described by many as
“natural.” To many pilots, the expert pilot becomes one with the machine and flows
within the “flying space.”

Pilots stated that the expert pilot has the following specific characteristics:

1) Possesses self-confidence in his or her skills

2) Is highly motivated to learn all there is to know about the flight domain and
constantly practices the relevant flying tasks

3) Has superior ability to focus on the primary task and change focus as necessary

4) Has excellent situational awareness (flight environment, location of other aircraft,

terrain, navigation, communications, weather, etc.)

5) Is highly cognizant of the aircraft’s condition including noise, vibration and engine
indications

6) Is always vigilant for the unusual, abnormal or emergency, and mentally makes
contingency plans

7) Has superior mental capacity for problem diagnosis, risk assessment and problem
resolution

8) Has excellent communication skills and applies them to each audience and
situation

9) Knows his or her own limitations and is motivated to keep a safe margin above
that limit
10) Has the discipline and strength of ego to acknowledge his or her limitations in
every situation and seek help from crewmembers to offset the limitations

Adaptive expertise is the ability to apply one’s expertise (knowledge and skills) to a
novel situation (implies the use of cognitive flexibility as discussed below). In order to
develop adaptive expertise, pilots must learn to understand the underlying principles
of a task at a deeper level. This, in turn, requires training that will enable pilots to
recognize situations that have changed or occur out of an expected context. It also
necessitates including problem-solving techniques as part of the training in order to
cope effectively with unexpected events. Adaptive expertise enables pilots to:

Deal with ambiguity and to understand how their current beliefs and
assumptions may affect their perceptions of a situation, particularly one they
have never experienced.

Use their current knowledge to modify existing strategies or to develop

productive new strategies in novel situations.

Extrapolate their knowledge to solve problems in novel situations.

Know what to do as well as what not to do in a situation.

Monitor their current level of understanding of a situation, continue to learn

and strive to achieve a higher level of functioning. Adaptive experts use each
new situation as an opportunity to acquire additional expertise.

Find ways to use what is known to define a solution to a problem. For

example, instead of opening up the schematic to find an answer to a question,
practice using logic and your knowledge of other systems you have studied to
answer the question, and then check your answer.

3 Improving Judgment and Expertise by Improving Skills

Experts will make better judgments than novices as long as the subject matter is
within their domain or specific area of expertise. Achieving expertise in aviation does
not happen overnight, and pilots must understand that it will only come with
deliberate practice of both perceptual-motor and cognitive skills.

3.1 Perceptual-motor skills

A perceptual-motor skill is any ability or capacity involving the interaction of

perception and voluntary movement. Perceptual-motor skills involve sensing,
thinking and then acting. Flying is a perceptual-motor skill because it requires pilots
to receive, perceive and process a wide range of information and to respond with
physical movements in order to fly the aircraft. To achieve expertise in perceptual-
motor skills, a pilot must:
  Practice flying at every opportunity.

 Practice a variety of flying scenarios (e.g., nonprecision approaches, hand-

flying).

 Create meaningful situations that will expand the pilot’s experience base
(e.g., fly new routes, learn a new aircraft and obtain an additional rating).

 Practice often and practice consistently.

 “Chair-fly” problematic flight segments by mentally walking through the

sequence of requisite tasks. For example, take an abnormal checklist and
mentally simulate the situation. Don’t just go through the boldface
immediate actions and memory items; visualize the cockpit, the switches
and the appropriate sequence of tasks that must be performed. Play the
mental simulation all the way through to the end. See how many questions
are generated. Identify factors that you had not thought about previously.

As noted above, practice is a central theme in improving perceptual-motor skills.

After time, many of these skills will become automatic, and a pilot will not have to
think about what movement is needed to perform a task. However, when a pilot
changes to a different aircraft, many of the learned perceptual-motor skills may not
be applicable and will have to be relearned for the new aircraft.

3.2 Cognitive skills

Cognitive skills are those that involve mental processes such as comprehension,
judgment, memory and reasoning. The training and deliberate practice techniques
for perceptual-motor skills can also enhance cognitive skills. However, cognitive
skills are often more complex than perceptual-motor skills. Because cognitive skills
are complex, a number of concepts have been explored related to the limitations of
human cognition. Understanding and using these concepts will aid a pilot in making
better judgments and increasing his or her expertise.

Recall involves the ability to consciously retrieve information. A variety of techniques

are available that help a person remember information. They are especially
important in aviation because of the large amounts of information that a pilot is
required to know to effectively operate a sophisticated aircraft.

Mnemonic devices are often used as recall or memory aids. Mnemonics can be
verbal, something such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a
person remember something, particularly lists. For lists, usually the first letters of
words or phrases are used to create a meaningful word that serves as a reminder of
larger lists of words or phrases. A common example from general aviation is FLARE
to help recall the key after-takeoff steps:
 F = flaps set (if extended during takeoff)

L = lights as required

A = auxiliary fuel pump off (if on for departure)

R = radar transponder on

E = engine (lean mixture when at altitude)

Mnemonics should not replace the use of checklists, but they are often very helpful.
Pilots should use standard mnemonics whenever available, but pilots should also try
creating their own as they may have more meaning to the individual and will likely be
remembered more easily.

Schema is a mental structure that represents some aspect of the world. A schema
helps individuals to organize information and to expect future events based on
previous experiences of sequenced events. A schema helps to make certain tasks
more automatic and lessens cognitive load. Generally speaking, a schema is formed
without effort, but it is important for an individual to understand that he or she indeed
is using a schema and that it may not necessarily apply to every situation. A novice
pilot will have very poorly developed schema for flying since he has little experience
performing tasks such as landing an aircraft. The novice will have to use much of his
cognitive capacity to think about and perform a landing. On the other hand, an
experienced “expert” pilot will have very well-developed schema. An expert pilot may
have a general schema that is applied to any landing, but the expert may also have a
different schema for landings at each individual airport. The expert will have to think
very little about the processes of landing an aircraft. However, this can sometimes
affect performance negatively by introducing biases such as confirmation bias. Here,
the pilot has used a certain schema successfully many times, but on a particular
occasion something is different (e.g., an unusual runway change). The pilot may use
his normal schema and miss or misinterpret the “different” information because the
unusual information or situation was not expected. If the pilot does not recognize
differences between the actual world and his or her schema, problems can occur.
For this reason, it is essential that even the most experienced pilots:

Monitor the environment for information that does not fit into their schema.

Recognize when the prior or regular schema is not sufficient.

Adjust their schema when necessary; the same schema will not work in all
situations.

Practice as many abnormal situations as possible; the more they practice, the
more developed their schema become and the more easily they can be
applied if the abnormal situations ever occur.
Cognitive flexibility is the ability to quickly and accurately restructure one’s current
thoughts and actions to respond adaptively to dynamic and ill-defined situations. An
expert is often able to recognize the need to change, whereas the novice may
continue with an approach that is inappropriate. At other times, experts lose
cognitive flexibility when they try to apply a schema or approach that has worked
many times in the past. To achieve cognitive flexibility, pilots must:

Maintain a mindset that is open to the possibility that the current situation may
differ in important respects from those experienced previously.

Be alert to subtle cues that signal the emergence of a problem, an event that
can cause a problem or entry into an unknown situation.

Have the ability to recognize that the course of action needs to be changed
and have the ego-strength to make the change when they determine it will be
beneficial.

Practice searching for alternative explanations and listening to other, perhaps

conflicting, points of view.

Have the capability to respond to a novel event by adapting expertise and

using logic and analysis in situations not covered by experience.

3.3 Metacognitive skills

Metacognition is the ability to monitor one's current level of understanding and to

decide when it is and is not adequate for the task at hand. In other words, it is
“thinking about thinking” or the awareness of one’s knowledge. Metacognition is a
skill that can be used to control cognitive processes. It is useful to pilots because:

In order to develop adaptive expertise, pilots must understand how they think
and how their current knowledge can be helpful or, at times, detrimental.

Metacognitive training teaches decision makers to use general rather than

specific strategies to optimize their judgment and decision-making processes
in both familiar and unfamiliar situations.

It helps one to maintain attentional control. Metacognition involves being

aware of what one is thinking or the process by which one is making a
decision.

In order to develop metacognitive skills, one should practice monitoring thoughts and
actions by asking: “What am I focusing on now and what is the state of the situation
(e.g., aircraft attitude, flight path, altitude, velocity)?” Think about thinking.
6 Key Points

Pilot judgment and aeronautical decision making are similar terms, and are
multi-dimensional concepts that examine processes and outcomes.

Judgment and a pilot’s level of expertise are closely linked.

The qualities of an expert pilot do not necessarily arise just from the number
of hours logged or the number of years of flying experience.

Pilots can improve judgment and expertise by practicing perceptual-motor and

cognitive skills.

Perceptual-motor skills may need to be relearned when transitioning to a new

aircraft.

Mnemonic devices can help pilots remember information, but they should not
replace checklists.

Schema develops with experience, and it is important to recognize when a

situation does not fit into your normal schema.

Cognitive flexibility and adaptive expertise are important in applying expertise

and judgment in new or unusual situations.

Enhancing metacognitive skills by thinking about thinking can lead to better

judgments and expertise.