The effects of a dual task on gaze behavior examined during a simulated flight in low-time pilots
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1439401
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Get this paper ↗ (DOI — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)
Summary
This study investigates how cognitive load, induced by a dual-task paradigm, affects gaze behavior and flight performance in low-time pilots. The research addresses the critical safety concern that ineffective pilot monitoring contributes to human factor errors, particularly during high-demand phases of flight. By utilizing eye-tracking metrics, the authors aim to objectively quantify how secondary tasks impact information processing efficiency and visual scanning strategies. The study specifically examines whether increased cognitive load leads to "cognitive tunneling" or reduced gaze dispersion, which are indicators of impaired situational awareness. The experimental design involved 22 licensed pilots with fewer than 350 flight hours who completed simulated flight circuits in an AL250 flight simulator under Visual Flight Rules. Participants performed three conditions: a single-task auditory oddball task, a single-task flight circuit, and a dual-task condition combining flight with the auditory task. The flight circuit was divided into two phases with varying cognitive demands: cruise (low load) and approach/landing (high load). Gaze behavior was recorded using MindLink eye-tracking glasses, analyzing ten specific areas of interest (AOIs) in the cockpit and external environment. Data analysis included traditional metrics (dwell time, fixation duration) and advanced entropy-based measures, including stationary gaze entropy (SGE), gaze transition entropy (GTE), and cognitive tunneling frequency. The results indicated that the dual-task condition was subjectively more demanding than single tasks, as reflected by lower self-reported situational awareness scores and reduced performance on the auditory oddball task. However, contrary to the hypothesis that high cognitive load would impair primary task execution, flight performance and gaze behavior remained largely unaffected. Pilots maintained efficient information processing and did not exhibit significant reductions in gaze dispersion (SGE) or scan pattern complexity (GTE), nor did they show increased cognitive tunneling during the high-load landing phase. These findings suggest that the recruited pilots possessed a level of skill proficiency that allowed them to allocate cognitive resources effectively, maintaining safe aircraft control despite the added secondary task demands. The significance of this study lies in its challenge to the assumption that dual-tasking invariably degrades pilot performance and gaze behavior. The findings support the Cognitive Control Hypthesis, suggesting that once a skill transitions from controlled to efficient processing, it becomes resistant to the impairing effects of concurrent cognitive loads. The results imply that gaze behavior metrics can serve as valid probes for assessing flight proficiency and information processing efficiency during training. Furthermore, the study highlights that the impact of secondary tasks is highly dependent on task type and pilot experience, offering insights for developing real-time monitoring systems to track pilot workload and safety in aviation contexts.
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-21 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-21 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-21 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-25 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
- Theoretical Contribution: theory or model