Fatigue, Emotion, and Cognitive Performance in Simulated Long-Duration, Single-Piloted Flight Missions

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Fatigue of air force pilots has become an increasing concern due to changes in mission characteristics. In the current study we investigated fatigue, emotions, and cognitive performance in a simulated 11-h mission in the 39 Gripen fighter aircraft. METHODS: A total of 12 subjects were evaluated in a high-fidelity dynamic flight simulator for 12 consecutive hours. Perceived fatigue was measured by the Samn-Perelli Fatigue Index (SPFI). Emotions were assessed with the Circumplex Affect Space. Cognitive performance was assessed by five cognitive tasks. RESULTS: Significant increase in self-reported fatigue, general decrease in two positive emotional states, as well increase of one negative emotional state occurred after approximately 7 h into the mission. Self-reported fatigue negatively correlated with enthusiasm and cheerfulness (r 0.75; 0.49, respectively) and positively correlated with boredom and gloominess (r 0.61; r 0.30, respectively). Response time in the low-order task negatively correlated with enthusiasm, cheerfulness and calmness (r 0.44; r 0.41; r 0.37, respectively) and positively correlated with boredom and anxiousness (r 0.37; r 0.28, respectively). Mission duration had an adverse impact on emotions in these environmental conditions, particularly after 7 h. DISCUSSION: These results contribute to the understanding of fatigue development in general and of emotion-cognition relationships. These findings emphasize that both emotional states and the type of cognitive tasks to be performed should be considered for planning long-duration missions in single-piloted fighter aircrafts as to increase the probability of missions success. Rosa E, Gronkvist M, Kolegard R, Dahlstrom N, Knez I, Ljung R, Willander J. Fatigue, emotion, and cognitive performance in simulated long-duration, single-piloted flight missions. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2021; 92(9):710719.

Cognitive performance, fatigue, emotional, and physiological strains in simulated long-duration flight missions

“…Regarding emotions, nevertheless, these results are in line with previous findings over time in these environmental conditions (Rosa et al, 2021 ), where emotionality ratings addressing glad/cheerful significantly decreased after approximately 7 hours into the mission. Similarly, emotions addressing drowsy/bored significantly increased after 7 hours and, following the same trend, participants reported being less active/stimulated and more passive/inactive, also after around hour 7.…”

“…Detailed results regarding fatigue, cognitive performance and emotions have been reported in other publications (Rosa et al, 2020 ; Rosa et al, 2021 ). Here, we briefly summarize the main findings from these studies.…”

“…Results of self-reported measures of fatigue and cognitive performance are reported in Rosa et al ( 2020 ). Results on emotions and fatigue are reported in Rosa et al ( 2021 ). These results are only briefly summarized in the current paper (see Results section).…”

“…Another possible indication of performance measurement relates to emotional ratings. Rosa et al ( 2021 ) have suggested that positive emotional rating decrease and negative emotional rating increase also after about 7 h of long-duration missions.…”

Classification of Electrophysiological Signatures With Explainable Artificial Intelligence: The Case of Alarm Detection in Flight Simulator

“…Previous studies have found that pilots’ performance is influenced by cognitive fatigue [e.g., Dehais et al (2018 , 2019) , Keller et al (2019) , Rocha and Silva (2019) , Quental et al (2021) , and Rosa et al (2021) ]. Implementing pBCI or neuro-adaptive technology is a relevant approach to study cognitive fatigue and to improve flight safety ( Zander et al, 2016 ; Arico et al, 2017 ; Dehais et al, 2018 ).…”