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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1981

Visual scanning behavior and pilot workload

An experimental paradigm and a set of results which demonstrate a relationship between the level of performance on a skilled man-machine control task, the skill of the operator, the level of mental difficulty induced by an additional task imposed on the basic control task, and visual scanning performance. During a constant, simulated piloting task, visual scanning of instruments was found to vary as a function of the level of difficulty of a verbal mental loading task. The average dwell time of each fixation on the pilot's primary instrument increased as a function of the estimated skill level of the pilots, with novices being affected by the loading task much more than the experts. The results suggest that visual scanning of instruments in a controlled task may be an indicator of both workload and skill.

Harris, R. L., Sr.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Comparison of Expert Vocabulary Usage Patterns Between Mental Health and Nonmental Health Clinicians When Diagnosing Pediatric Anxiety Disorders

Objective: To compare the utilization patterns of expert vocabulary (EVo) in diagnosing pediatric anxiety between mental health and non-mental health clinical notes from electronic health records to understand the role of Evo in informing classification and decision-making in anxiety diagnoses. Study design: We conducted a retrospective study using a cohort less than age 25 from Cincinnati Children's Hospital including 897 685 patients with 61 586 446 notes. We analyzed EVo, collected from mental health clinicians, in both mental and nonmental health notes. We compared classification accuracy using EVo-based patient-level embedding from all clinical notes, mental-health notes, and nonmental health notes for 2 tasks: 1) pre-vs postdiagnosis anxiety patients, and 2) prediagnosis anxiety vs nonanxiety patients. Results: EVo usage was highest in prediagnosis anxiety, lower in nonanxiety, and lowest in post-diagnosis. Classification models using EVo features from all, mental-health, and non-mental health notes showed similar F1 scores for prediagnosis anxiety (0.70 ± 0.2 for 2 categories). For anxiety vs nonanxiety classification, all clinical and nonmental health notes had better F1 scores than mental-health notes (above 0.90 for 3 categories). There was a notable difference in class-wise performance across both tasks. Conclusions: There are significant differences in anxiety EVo use between mental health and nonmental health clinicians. Despite less anxiety-specific terminology, non-mental health notes still captured key aspects of patient presentations, emphasizing the importance of including all clinicians' notes in analysis. EVo's utility for anxiety classification is most effective in prediagnostic phases, suggesting the need for a dedicated diagnostic lexicon and further study before incorporating EVo into classification models.

feature engineering↗
NASA NTRS1984

Classification Systems for Individual Differences in Multiple-task Performance and Subjective Estimates of Workload

Human factors practitioners often are concerned with mental workload in multiple-task situations. Investigations of these situations have demonstrated repeatedly that individuals differ in their subjective estimates of workload. These differences may be attributed in part to individual differences in definitions of workload. However, after allowing for differences in the definition of workload, there are still unexplained individual differences in workload ratings. The relation between individual differences in multiple-task performance, subjective estimates of workload, information processing abilities, and the Type A personality trait were examined.

Damos, D. L.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Twentieth Annual Conference on Manual Control, Volume 2

Volume II contains thirty two complete manuscripts and five abstracts. The topics covered include the application of event-related brain potential analysis to operational problems, the subjective evaluation of workload, mental models, training, crew interaction analysis, multiple task performance, and the measurement of workload and performance in simulation.

Hart, S. G.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Meeting human needs

Manned space flight can be viewed as an interaction of three general elements: the human crewmember, spacecraft systems, and the environment. While the human crewmember is a crucial element in the system, certain physiological, psychological, environ- mental and spacecraft systems factors can compromise human performance in space. These factors include atmospheric pressure, physiology, uncertainties associated with space radiation, the potential for exposure to toxic materials in the closed environment, and spacecraft habitability. Health protection in space, for current and future missions, relies on a philosophy of risk reduction, which in the space program is achieved in four ways-through health maintenance, health care, design criteria, an selection and training. Emphasis is place upon prevention, through selection criteria and careful screening. Spacecraft health care systems must be absolutely reliable, and they will be automated and computerized to the maximum extent possible, but still designed with the human crewmember's capabilities in mind. The autonomy and technological sophistication of future missions will require a greater emphasis on high-level interaction between the human operator and automated systems, with effective allocation of tasks between humans and machines. Performance in space will include complex tasks during extravehicular activity (EVA) and on planetary surfaces, and knowledge of crewmembers' capability and limitations during such operations will be critical to mission success. Psychological support will become increasingly important on space missions, as crews spend long periods in remote and potentially hazardous environments. The success of future missions will depend on both individual psychological health and group cohesion and productivity, particularly as crew profiles become more heterogeneous. Thus, further human factors are needed in the area of small-group dynamics and performance.

Nicogossian, Arnauld E.↗
NASA NTRS2017

An Advanced Trajectory-Based Operations Prototype Tool and Focus Group Evaluation

Trajectory-based operations (TBO) is a key concept in the Next Generation Air Transportation System transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS) that will increase the predictability and stability of traffic flows, support a common operational picture through the use of digital data sharing, facilitate more effective collaborative decision making between airspace users and air navigation service providers, and enable increased levels of integrated automation across the NAS. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been developing trajectory-based systems to improve the efficiency of the NAS during specific phases of flight and is now also exploring Advanced 4-Dimensional Trajectory (4DT) operational concepts that will integrate these technologies and incorporate new technology where needed to create both automation and procedures to support gate-to-gate TBO. A TBO Prototype simulation toolkit has been developed that demonstrates initial functionality that may reside in an Advanced 4DT TBO concept. Pilot and controller subject matter experts (SMEs) were brought to the Air Traffic Operations Laboratory at NASA Langley Research Center for discussions on an Advanced 4DT operational concept and were provided an interactive demonstration of the TBO Prototype using four example scenarios. The SMEs provided feedback on potential operational, technological, and procedural opportunities and concerns. After viewing the interactive demonstration scenarios, the SMEs felt the operational capabilities demonstrated would be useful for performing TBO while maintaining situation awareness and low mental workload. The TBO concept demonstrated produced defined routings around weather which resulted in a more organized, consistent flow of traffic where it was clear to both the controller and pilot what route the aircraft was to follow. In general, the controller SMEs felt that traffic flow management should be responsible for generating and negotiating the operational constraints demonstrated, in cooperation with the Air Traffic Control System Command Center, while air traffic control should be responsible for the implementation of those constraints. The SMEs also indicated that digital data communications would be very beneficial for TBO operations and would result in less workload due to reduced communications, would eliminate issues due to language barriers and frequency problems, and would make receiving, loading, accepting, and executing clearances easier, less ambiguous, and more expeditious. This paper describes an Advanced 4DT operational concept, the TBO Prototype, the demonstration scenarios and methods used, and the feedback obtained from the pilot and controller SMEs in this focus group evaluation.

Guerreiro, Nelson M.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Brainstem response and state-trait variables

A series of investigations are summarized from a personality research program that have relevance for mental state estimation. Of particular concern are those personality variables that are believed to have either a biological or perceptual basis and their relationship to human task performance and psychophysiology. These variables are among the most robust personality measures and include such dimensions as extraversion-introversion, sensation seeking, and impulsiveness. These dimensions also have the most distinct link to performance and psychophysiology. Through the course of many of these investigations two issues have emerged repeatedly: these personality dimensions appear to mediate mental state, and mental state appears to influence measures of performance or psychophysiology.

Gilliland, Kirby↗
NASA NTRS1985

Evaluation of 16 measures of mental workload using a simulated flight task emphasizing mediational activity

As aircraft and other systems become more automated, a shift is occurring in human operator participation in these systems. This shift is away from manual control and toward activities that tap the higher mental functioning of human operators. Therefore, an experiment was performed in a moving-base flight simulator to assess mediational (cognitive) workload measurement. Specifically, 16 workload estimation techniques were evaluated as to their sensitivity and intrusion in a flight task emphasizing mediational behavior. Task loading, using navigation problems presented on a display, was treated as an independent variable, and workload-measure values were treated as dependent variables. Results indicate that two mediational task measures, two rating scale measures, time estimation, and two eye behavior measures were reliably sensitive to mediational loading. The time estimation measure did, however, intrude on mediational task performance. Several of the remaining measures were completely insensitive to mediational load.

Wierwille, W. W.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Training and subjective workload in a category search task

This study examined automaticity as a means by which training influences mental workload. Two groups were trained in a category search task. One group received a training paradigm designed to promote the development of automaticity; the other group received a training paradigm designed to prohibit it. Resultant performance data showed the expected improvement as a result of the development of automaticity. Subjective workload assessments mirrored the performance results in most respects. The results supported the position that subjective mental workload assessments may be sensitive to the effect of training when it produces a lower level of cognitive load.

Vidulich, Michael A.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Individual differences in airline captains' personalities, communication strategies, and crew performance

Aircrew effectiveness in coping with emergencies has been linked to captain's personality profile. The present study analyzed cockpit communication during simulated flight to examine the relation between captains' discourse strategies, personality profiles, and crew performance. Positive Instrumental/Expressive captains and Instrumental-Negative captains used very similar communication strategies and their crews made few errors. Their talk was distinguished by high levels of planning and strategizing, gathering information, predicting/alerting, and explaining, especially during the emergency flight phase. Negative-Expressive captains talked less overall, and engaged in little problem solving talk, even during emergencies. Their crews made many errors. Findings support the theory that high crew performance results when captains use language to build shared mental models for problem situations.

Orasanu, Judith↗
NASA NTRS2000

Electroencephalographic Monitoring of Cognitive Fatigue

Mental exhaustion often poses a serious risk, even when performance is not apparently degraded. When such fatigue is associated with sustained performance of a single type of cognitive task it may be related to the metabolic energy required for sustained activation of cortical fields specialized for that task. The objective of this study was to adapt EEG to monitor cortical energy dissipation at a functionally specialized site over a long period of repetitive performance of a cognitive task.

Montgomery, Leslie D.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Aerothermodynamic Measurements in Hypersonic Non-Equilibrium Flows

High enthalpy arc-jets are unique facilities particularly suited for simulating complex flows in the aerospace field, such as the aerothermodynamics of a re-entry vehicle. Arc-jets are often used to evaluate important design factors such as heat shield materials and vehicle design. Characterization of these facilities is important, as studies often match specific in-flight environments during experiments. Due to the complex environment produced by an arc-jet, with effects such as thermodynamic and chemical non-equilibrium occurring in the flow, characterization experiments are significantly more difficult than in traditional blow-down wind tunnels. The current work aims to characterize an arc-jet facility in terms of flow temperature, velocity and unsteadiness, in a spatially-resolved analysis. To achieve this goal, a non-intrusive imaging technique called “planar laser-induced fluorescence” was performed in the NASA Langley Hypersonic Materials Environ-mental Test System arc-jet facility. The experimental data was analyzed to produce the quantitative measurements in multiple regions of the flow around a blunt body sample. A quasi-1D low fidelity solver was created to numerically simulate the flow to investigate non-equilibrium effects occur-ring outside the imaging region in the arc-jet nozzle. Unsteadiness in the test section was minimized by analyzing a subset of data assessing the gas injection location. Radial velocity, rotational temperature and translational temperature measurements are provided that can be used to validate future high-fidelity computational studies. The temperature measurements revealed rotational non-equilibrium potentially occurring in the flow. This work provides a methodology for characterizing arc-jet facilities, identifying and correcting sources of systematic error, and estimating the uncertainty associated with the quantitative measurements.

laser induced fluorescence↗
DOE OSTI2025

Proactively Addressing Employee Well-Being to Foster Workplace Safety in a U.S. National Laboratory

The daily conduct of high-risk, high-consequence work, by its very nature, can be mentally demanding. Research demonstrates that failure to manage or mitigate these demands can degrade psychological well-being and mental health. Degradations in employee well-being impact individual performance, jeopardizing safety and mission success in the workplace. This Commentary describes efforts taken at Sandia National Laboratories over the past eight years to evaluate, understand, learn from, and mitigate factors such as stress, burnout, work-life imbalances, and disengagement in the workplace that can degrade employee well-being. After evaluating these four facets of employee well-being, Sandia National Laboratories initiated several programs to address observations and outcomes, including the Thrive program, the Take 10 Initiative, work-life balance resources, employee resource groups such as the Sandia Parents Group, and Workplace Improvement Networks. Collectively, the intent of these programs is to ensure employee mental readiness to conduct hazardous high-risk work effectively and safely. Preliminary data suggest that these programs are succeeding. In conclusion, other national laboratories and organizations, regardless of size, may wish to apply similar approaches to improve employee well-being and thereby increase the likelihood of mission success.

Absorption↗
NASA NTRS2012

Predicting the Impacts of Intravehicular Displays on Driving Performance with Human Performance Modeling

A challenge facing the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), as well as international safety experts, is the need to educate car drivers about the dangers associated with performing distraction tasks while driving. Researchers working for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory have developed a technique for predicting the increase in mental workload that results when distraction tasks are combined with driving. They implement this technique using human performance modeling. They have predicted workload associated with driving combined with cell phone use. In addition, they have predicted the workload associated with driving military vehicles combined with threat detection. Their technique can be used by safety personnel internationally to demonstrate the dangers of combining distracter tasks with driving and to mitigate the safety risks.

Mitchell, Diane Kuhl↗
NASA NTRS1991

Information transfer and shared mental models for decision making

A study to determine how communication influences flight crew performance is presented. This analysis focuses on the content of communication, principally asking what an utterance does from a cognitive, problem solving viewpoint. Two questions are addressed in this study: how is language utilized to manage problems in the cockpit, and are there differences between two- and three-member crews in their communication and problem solving strategies?

Orasanu, Judith↗
NASA NTRS1992

On the transmission of partial information: inferences from movement-related brain potentials

Results are reported from a new paradigm that uses movement-related brain potentials to detect response preparation based on partial information. The paradigm uses a hybrid choice-reaction go/nogo procedure in which decisions about response hand and whether to respond are based on separate stimulus attributes. A lateral asymmetry in the movement-related brain potential was found on nogo trials without overt movement. The direction of this asymmetry depended primarily on the signaled response hand rather than on properties of the stimulus. When the asymmetry first appeared was influenced by the time required to select the signaled hand, and when it began to differ on go and nogo trials was influenced by the time to decide whether to respond. These findings indicate that both stimulus attributes were processed in parallel and that the asymmetry reflected preparation of the response hand that began before the go/nogo decision was completed.

NASA Discipline Space Human Factors↗
NASA NTRS1990

Real-time measurement of mental workload: A feasibility study

The primary goal of the study was to explore the utility of event-related brain potentials (ERP) as real-time measures of workload. To this end, subjects performed two different tasks both separately and together. One task required that subjects monitor a bank of constantly changing gauges and detect critical deviations. Difficulty was varied by changing the predictability of the gauges. The second task was mental arithmetic. Difficulty was varied by requiring subjects to perform operations on either two or three columns of numbers. Two conditions that could easily be distinguished on the basis of performance measures were selected for the real-time evaluation of ERPs. A bootstrapping approach was adopted in which one thousand samples of n trials (n = 1, 3, 5 ...65) were classified using several measures of P300 and Slow Wave amplitude. Classification accuracies of 85 percent were achieved with 25 trials. Results are discussed in terms of potential enhancements for real-time recording.

Kramer, Arthur↗