A New Protocol to Study Mind-Wandering for Air Traffic Controllers

Servais, Anaïs; Riedinger, Florine; Granger, Géraud; Imbert, Jean-Paul; Barbeau, Emmanuel J.; Hurter, Christophe · 2023 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1027/2192-0923/a000253

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Summary

This pilot study addresses the under-researched phenomenon of mind-wandering among air traffic controllers (ATCOs), a group for whom attentional lapses are a primary cause of operational errors. While mind-wandering is known to impair performance in safety-sensitive tasks like driving, its impact on ATCOs remains poorly understood due to the difficulty of inducing and measuring this spontaneous mental state in laboratory settings. The authors aimed to develop an innovative protocol to trigger attentional switches toward internal thoughts and identify physiological markers, specifically eye movements, that could detect these switches in real-time. To achieve this, the researchers recruited 16 healthy participants who performed an air traffic control simulation task using the LABY microworld interface. The task required participants to acknowledge cleared flight levels for moving aircraft. The experimental design included two conditions: one triggering spontaneous memories via cue phrases and another inducing voluntary memories through explicit questions. These memory cues were presented during periods of varying mental load. Eye movements were recorded using Pupil Core eye-tracking glasses and a camcorder to capture gaze behavior. The study focused on measuring changes in vergence angle and dwell time outside the control sector, hypothesizing that gaze aversion and looking away from the task area would serve as temporal markers of the shift to internal attention. The results demonstrated that the protocol successfully induced one to five spontaneous memories in half of the participants. This induction of internal attention had a measurable negative impact on task performance, specifically increasing the median response time to clear flight levels by 0.74 seconds. Furthermore, the study identified gaze aversion as a potential ocular marker for mind-wandering. This behavior was positively correlated with self-reported mind-wandering and was observed when participants shifted their attention away from the external control sector. The findings suggest that autobiographical memory retrieval can effectively mimic the onset of mind-wandering in a controlled environment. The significance of this work lies in its contribution to aviation psychology and human factors by providing a viable method for studying mind-wandering in operational contexts. By establishing a link between autobiographical memory retrieval, gaze aversion, and performance degradation, the study offers a pathway for developing real-time detection systems for attentional lapses. This is critical for enhancing safety in aeronautics, where maintaining external attention is paramount. The protocol allows for the indirect study of mind-wandering processes and provides empirical evidence that physiological markers like eye movements can identify when operators are disengaged from their external environment.

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• mind wandering
• cognitive

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• Methodological Resource: measurement protocol