The Attentional Blink In Military Pilots And Its Applied Research

With the development of science and aerospace technology,the integration of“information explosion”and“tactical information explosion”in the cockpit display/control area of military aircraft makes the military pilots’information processing in great stress.In this situation,if the military pilots would be able or not to identify and process a variety of complex information quickly and effectively and prevent missing information or misidenting the key information will directly determine whether they can make decisions scientificly.However,there is a phenomenon that named“Attentional Blink”in the activities of human information processing,which is a phenomenon of attentional blindness in the course of time.Studies have found that it was significantly related with individual behavioral performance,which could predict the subjects’performance in the simulated aviation task and was one of the main causes of flight operation errors.Nevertheless,there is no research on the attentional blink in military pilots and explore its influence on the flight at present.The present study aimies at investigating that the attentional blink in military pilots and its relationship with flight performance,the mechanism of action on the attentional blink in predicting the flight performance,the feasibility of applying attentional blink performance to selection and grounding,and the methods of intervention on the attentional blink.There are four main parts and eight studies.In the first part,study 1 was conducted.Thirty military pilots（aged 44.23±4.07）and29 ordinary people（aged 44.07±2.93）participated in it,which aimed at investigating the attentional blink in military pilots and its relationship with flight performance.All the subjects were tested by the attentional blink task and the military pilot’s flight highest,average and lowest performance were collected.It was found that the pilot’s performance in attentional blink was better than that of ordinary people（P=0.001）,and the performance in attentional blink could predict the military pilots’lowest flight score（β=0.514,P<0.001,R²=0.31）.In the second part,study 2,study 3 and study 4 were conducted which aimed at exploring the mechanism of action about the attentional blink in predicting the military pilots’lowest flight score.There were 29（aged 44.55±4.10）military pilots participated in study 2,29（aged 44.24±3.94）military pilots participated in study 3 and 26（aged 44.96±3.77）military pilots participated in study 4.In the three studies,all the subjects were tested by the attentional blink task,and their lowest flight performance were collected.In study 2,the military pilots’inhibiting ability and spatial working memory capacity were assessed by the Stroop test and the test of spatial working memory respectively.In study3,the pilots’situation awareness level were measured by the situation awareness rating technique.In study 4,the pilots’rapid response ability were evaluated by the graph comparison test.The results showed that the performance in attentional blink of military pilots can predict their lowest flight scores by predicting inhibiting ability（the proportion of mediating effect was 29%）,situation awareness level（the proportion of mediating effect was 33%）and rapid response ability（the proportion of mediating effect was 40%）.In the third part,study 5 and study 6 were conducted which aimed at exploring the application of attentional blink in selection and grounding for military pilots.Thirty qualified and 30 eliminated candidates aged 17-19 participated in study 5 during the work of military flying cadet’s selection.Both of the groups were tested by the attentional blink task respectively.It was found that the performance in attentional blink of qualified candidate was better than that of eliminated candidates（t=2.75,P<0.001,d=0.70）.In study 6,the attentional blink performance in military pilots of different age groups（27aged under 40 years old,26 among 41-45 years old,30 aged more than 46 years old）were compared.The results showed that the attentional blink performance in pilots aged more than 46 years old was worse than that of 41-45 years old group and under 40 years old group(F_（2,80）=5.32,P<0.01,η²=0.12),and the age was significantly related to the number of grounded（χ²=17.61,P<0.001）.Based on this,the attentional blink performance in 18grounded pilots and 65 flying pilots was compared.The result showed that the attentional blink performance in grounded pilots was significantly worse than that of flying pilots（t=2.16,P<0.05,d=0.44）.In the fourth part,study 7 and study 8 were conducted which aimed at exploring the intervention methods on attentional blink.There were 60 students（18-22 years old）from one Air Force Academies participated in study 7.The students were divided into four groups:the blank control group（n=16）,the cognitive control training group（n=16）,the transcranial direct current stimulation group（n=14）,and the intervention group combined the cognitive control training and transcranial direct current stimulation（n=14）.The results of behavioral data found that the combined intervention group had the most obvious effect in improving attentional blink（η²=0.17）,followed by the transcranial direct current stimulation group（η²=0.08）,but the cognitive control training group had no significant effect.In study 8,there were 11 subjects of the combined intervention group,9subjects of the cognitive control training group and 10 subjects of the transcranial direct current stimulation group participated in it.The characteristics of f NIRS in the left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex were compared to explore the neuroimaging changes.The results showed that the concentration of Oxygenate Hemoglobin in the left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex of the combined intervention group increased significantly before the attentional blink task（η²=0.51）,but there were no significant change in the transcranial direct current stimulation group and the cognitive control training group.According to thes results,the main conclusions of the present study are as follows.First,the attentional blink performance in military pilots is good and it could predict their worst flight performance.Second,the attentional blink performance could be used to predict the worst flight performance by predicting military pilots’inhibiting ability,situation awareness level and rapid response ability.Third,it has certain feasibility to consider the attentional blink performance as one supplementary indicator for military pilots’selection and grounding.Forth,the intervention effect of the method combined transcranial direct current stimulation and cognitive control training on the attentional blink performance was not only reflected in behavior,but also in neuroimaging changes of the related brain regions.It shows that the combined intervention can improve the attentional blink performance effectively.The innovation points of the present study are as follows.It founded the important role of attentional blink in flight by using the military pilots as subjects and provides new referable indicator for military pilots’selection and grounding.Besides,it provides more effective new methods and techniques for improving attentional blink by combing transcranial direct current stimulation and cognitive control training.It will deepen the understanding of attentional blink,enriching the research content of cognitive ability in military pilots,providing new perspectives for the studies about military pilots’cognitive function and the factors influencing flight performance.