ISAE-SUPAERO, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France.
Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2021 Mar;46(1):29-42. doi: 10.1007/s10484-020-09481-0.
Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) events still remain among the deadliest accidents in aviation. When facing the possible occurrence of such an event, pilots have to immediately react to the ground proximity alarm ("Pull Up" alarm) in order to avoid the impending collision. However, the pilots' reaction to this alarm is not always optimal. This may be at least partly due to the low visual saliency of the current alarm and the deleterious effects of stress that alleviate the pilot's reactions. In the present study, two experiments (in a laboratory and in a flight simulator) were conducted to (1) investigate whether hand gesture videos (a hand pulling back the sidestick) can trigger brainwave frequencies related to the mirror neuron system; (2) determine whether enhancing the visual characteristics of the "Pull Up" alarm could improve pilots' response times. Electrophysiological results suggest that hand gesture videos attracted more participants' attention (greater alpha desynchronization in the parieto-occipital area) and possibly triggered greater activity of the mirror neuron system (greater mu and beta desynchronizations at central electrodes). Results obtained in the flight simulator revealed that enhancing the visual characteristics of the original "Pull Up" alarm improved the pilots' reaction times. However, no significant difference in reaction times between an enlarged "Pull Up" inscription and the hand gesture video was found. Further work is needed to determine whether mirror neuron system based alarms could bring benefits for flight safety, in particular, these alarms should be assessed during a high stress context.
可控飞行撞地（CFIT）事件仍然是航空领域最致命的事故之一。当面临此类事件发生的可能性时，飞行员必须立即对地面接近警报（“拉起”警报）做出反应，以避免即将发生的碰撞。然而，飞行员对该警报的反应并不总是最佳的。这至少部分是由于当前警报的视觉显著性低以及减轻飞行员反应的应激的有害影响。在本研究中，进行了两项实验（在实验室和飞行模拟器中），以（1）研究手的手势视频（向后拉侧杆的手）是否可以触发与镜像神经元系统相关的脑电波频率；（2）确定增强“拉起”警报的视觉特征是否可以提高飞行员的反应时间。脑电图结果表明，手的手势视频吸引了更多参与者的注意力（顶枕区的阿尔法去同步化更大），并且可能触发了更大的镜像神经元系统的活动（中央电极的 mu 和 beta 去同步化更大）。在飞行模拟器中获得的结果表明，增强原始“拉起”警报的视觉特征提高了飞行员的反应时间。但是，在放大的“拉起”字样和手的手势视频之间，反应时间没有明显差异。需要进一步的工作来确定基于镜像神经元系统的警报是否可以为飞行安全带来好处，特别是，这些警报应在高应激环境下进行评估。
