

What uncertainties existed regarding the feasibility? Results suggest that implementing NeuroTracker as a classroom-based intervention and using clinically validated outcome measures is feasible with this population. Some limitations of the academic measures were identified. Eighty-three percent of participants meeting initial inclusion criteria completed all stages of the study from baseline to post-intervention assessments. ResultsĪll recruited participants completed 15 training sessions within a 6-week period. Recruitment and retention rates, adherence, and properties of the academic measures were assessed. Twenty-six adolescents aged between 11 and 16 years with a Wechsler-based IQs in the extremely low range ( M IQ = 56.00, SD IQ = 13.89) completed 15 training sessions on either the NeuroTracker or an active control task math and reading performance were assessed using clinically validated instruments before and after training. He is hopeful that the pilot workload research OPL’s conducting in the cockpit will help bring enhanced simulation and training tools to the commercial market.This feasibility study investigated the viability of implementing a cognitive-based training program (NeuroTracker) and assessing its potential effects on academic performance for adolescents with extremely low IQ.
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The information is combined with other physiological data using OPL-created software known as the Cognitive Avionics Tool Set.Īerospace companies like Rockwell Collins want to develop better flight training and simulation technology, including the use of biometrics and cognitive elements, Schnell says. A camera attached to the pilot’s helmet recorded eye movement while another monitored pilot heart rate. These high-pressure multitasking moments are exactly what Schnell and his team want to observe. As study participants performed flight maneuvers of varying difficulty at approximately 10,000 feet-from an easy 30-degree right turn to a timed, 1,000-foot descent with 360-degree turn-they were required to also keep track of a number of moving spheres.Īlthough test participants practice on the NeuroTracker software for weeks before takeoff, it’s much more difficult to track the moving spheres while actually flying an aircraft. OPL then measured how quickly pilots became overwhelmed. Researchers wanted pilots with minimal flying skills because high-time aviators have already proven capable at juggling numerous activities. NeuroTracker software by CogniSens Inc., a Canadian firm that uses neurological technologies to enhance cognitive capabilities, produces images of spheres, each with an ID number, that move across the screen before the pilot’s eyes.įor the actual testing, Schnell recruited low-time pilots from a local flight school, while others simply volunteered. OPL researchers recently partnered with Rockwell Collins to equip one of the lab’s two jet fighter training aircraft with an additional computer and touch screen to virtually augment pilot workload in flight. “Tracking cockpit automation takes an analytic mind and is a task that must be learned in order to be mastered.” The degradation from a situation where all is well to where aircraft control is lost can be a few seconds,” Schnell says. We’re providing an academic research environment that allows for rigorous testing of new technology, as well as the study of pilot behavior. “All of these technologies require more headwork, more coordination and more multitasking. OPL director Tom Schnell noted that pilots today, both military and civilian, push a great many buttons in the cockpit, efforts that take their eyes away from the horizon to monitor a screen. The University of Iowa’s Operator Performance Laboratory, an aircraft simulation and flight testing organization, wants to better understand the workload level a pilot can handle before they become truly overwhelmed.
