ABSTRACT
Prior theories about individual and team adaptation to living and working in an isolated and confined environment (ICE) have been derived from the experiences of individuals who winter-over in Antarctica or deploy for long durations in submarines. These theories are typically described as a 3- to 4-stage process with phases of excitement and elevated alertness, then followed by difficult phases, including depression and volatility. To further evaluate the applicability of these theories to long-duration human spaceflight missions, longitudinal stress responses to prolonged isolation and confinement of three 6-person crews during 8-12 months simulated Mars missions were characterized through metabolite profiling (biomarkers in hair and urine samples), wearables monitoring (sleep and activity levels), and self-reported ratings of stress, mood, social participation, and perceived health. These data were normalized, aggregated, and clustered to analyze longitudinal trends in biobehavioral and psychosocial stress measures. As a result, this analysis presents a theoretical model that triangulates aspects of prior theories with new evidence to describe ICE stress at HI-SEAS as 1) eustress of initial adaptation (high stress hormone levels at mission start), 2) deprivation due to prolonged isolation and confinement (decreasing dopamine and serotonin levels), 3) disruption of individual and team dynamics (changes in activity levels, mood, perceived stress, and social participation) and 4) asynchronous coping (changes in sleep-wake cycles, outlook, and team cohesion). These findings support several aspects of prior theories in combination, such as the elevated alertness at mission start and that adverse conditions are most likely to develop after the halfway point of a mission (e.g. for HI-SEAS 8-12 months missions, after approximately 6 months) followed by a period of volatility until the end (e.g. as stated in Rohrer's theory, ups and downs until the end, not a renewed outlook at the end as described in 3rd quarter phenomenon theory).
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The objective was to determine whether the scanpaths of air traffic controllers (ATCs) could be used to improve the performance of novices in a conflict detection task. BACKGROUND: Studies in other domains show that novice performance can be improved by exposure to experts' scanpaths. Whether this effect can be found for an aircraft conflict detection task is unknown. METHOD: Scanpaths of 25 professional ATCs ("experts") were recorded using a medium-fidelity air traffic control simulation with realistic scripted traffic that included aircraft pairs that would lose separation. A total of 20 novices were exposed to experts' scanpaths ("treatment"), and their performance (for both loss of separation detection rates and false alarm rates) was compared to that of 20 novices given no treatment or instructions ("control") and 20 novices who were verbally instructed to attend to altitude ("instruction-only"). Interviews were held about the helpfulness of the exposure. The scanpaths were analyzed to find pattern differences among the three groups. RESULTS: Chi-square tests showed significant differences for false alarm rates across the three groups (p = .001). Pairwise Mann-Whitney tests showed that the number of false alarms for the treatment group was significantly lower than that for the control group (p = .005), and trended lower than the instruction-only group (p = .08). Treatment group participants responded that experts' scanpaths helped. Analysis of scanpaths showed an increased tendency of the scanpath treatment group to follow the experts' scanpath. CONCLUSION: The scanpath training intervention improved novice performance by reducing false alarms. APPLICATION: Implementing experts' scanpaths into novices' active learning process shows promise in enhancing training effectiveness and reducing training time.
