Age-Related Pilot Cognition and Working Memory
Unlike commercial airline pilots who are restricted by the Federal Aviation Association’s (FAA) ‘age 65’ rule, no age limit is defined in general aviation (GA) and in the USA, the GA pilot population is getting older (Air Safety Institute, n.d.; Clause, Dehais, Arexis, & Pastor, 2011; Hardy & Parasuraman, 1997). The complexity of aircraft navigation ensures time-pressured actions; affected by various factors as expertise level and cognitive potential. For older pilots who naturally experience age-associated reductions in visual acuity and cognitive potential, these aspects can play an increasingly larger role in combating unpredictable environments such as unfavorable weather conditions or emergency situations (Kennedy, Taylor, Reade & Yesavage, 2010). The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) provides ample data divulging GA pilot population pilot-error trends regarding such factors as age-related risk factors, i.e., pilot age, changes in cognitive and physical functioning, working memory, and performance during adverse weather conditions (NTSB, 2005). Inevitably, since pilot’s cognitive performance plays an increasingly significant role in GA, grasping the impact of age-related cognition performance decline becomes congruently more and more vital (Hardy & Parasuraman, 1997).
While a plethora of studies have examined factors linked to weather-related aviation mishap cases, very limited reviews of literature have experimentally analyzed two significant factors related to decisional error in aviation mishaps: age-related cognition and working memory in pilots due to the obstacles producing a reasonably large group of subject pilots (Air Safety Institute, n.d.; Kennedy et al, ...
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National Transportation Safety Board. (2005). Risk factors associated with weather-related general aviation accidents. Safety Study NTSB/SS-05/01. Retrieved from http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/safetystudies/SS0501.pdf
Schriver, T., Morrow, D., Wickens, C., & Talleur, A. (2008). Expertise differences in attentional strategies related to pilot decision making. Hum Factors., 50, 864–878.
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Retrieved from http://www.generalaviationnews.com/2011/12/aging-gracefully-flying-safely/
Statistics show 16- to 17-year-old driver death rates increase with each additional passenger, which is due to distracted driving. Taking your eyes off the road for 2 (two) seconds, at 60 mph, means you have driven blindly for half the length of a football field. The risk of fatality is 3.6 times higher, when they are driving with passengers than when alone. For many years, the correlation between driving behavior and age has interested highway safety researchers and administrators. It is general knowledge that the greatest risk of motor vehicle crash...
Ineffective Flight Readiness Review meetings: The reviews were not conducted properly and issues were ignored in the FRR
Loss of motor skills is common among people when they get older, which increases dramatically after age 65. Motor skills are functions that involve the precise movement of muscles in order to perform a certain task. In a psychology study where 24 young adults were tested against 24 senior citizens, the evidence suggested that in addition to general slowing, the elderly have troubles with motor skills because they execute movement sequences as a series of individual movements and not as a combined pattern. When people execute individual movements, it makes it harder to multi-task which is a necessity while driving on the road. Having to control brakes, gas, steering, lane changes, turning, head checks, and many other assortment of tasks while driving, takes a toll on elderly people with diminishing motor skills. Another major contributing factor to deterioration of motor skills is change in cognitive function. One basic cognitive function that is severely...
Tun, McCoy, & Wingfield (2009) found that extra effort at the sensory-perceptual level in relation to hearing loss has negative consequences to subsequent recollection, an effect that may be further instigated as an individual ages. The study measured the degree to which age and hearing loss may press on processing resources. They found evidence that suggested the added effort required for advantageous perceptions by older individuals are substantially stressed age-related memory deficits, even in the presences of sensory impairments (Tun, McCoy, & Wingfield, 2009). Additionally, Medeiros-Ward, Cooper, & Strayer (2014) reported on the concept of hierarchical control and the role it can play in distracted driving. Their findings indicated that when drivers are simultaneously involved in a secondary cognitive task in a windy driving condition, attention was drawn away from driving and there was a decline in the ability to maintain lane position (Medeiros-Ward, Cooper, & Strayer, 2014). In looking at factors that impair attention while behind the wheel, one study worked to understand how attentional costs could have a greater impact on the surrounding environment. This was tested by assessing the detection of external warning sounds in vehicles (Slawinski & MacNeil, 2002). They investigated the effects of age on the external vehicular warning sounds in the presence of
Accident:Toward a Quantitative Case Analysis." Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 2.3 (1989): 167-177. Business Source Complete. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
It’s normal that as we age, our driving abilities tend to change. Adjusting to life changes such as retirement, different schedules, and new activities also affect where and when they drive. Most older adults drive safely because they have a lot of experience behind the wheel. They are often hurt more seriously than younger drivers when they are involved in crashes (Older Drivers , 2012). There are many factors that affect older adults when driving such as arthritis, memory loss, and spine problems, which make drivers lose height and become shorter behind the wheel, diminishing visual range (Older Drivers , 2012). Driving skills can be affected by age-related declines in vision, hearing, cognitive functioning, ability to reason and remember, and other abilities, as well as certain health conditions and medications. It’s important to note , adults tend to take more medications as they age, and even if they’re not developing dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, the medications can cause cognitive changes and confusion, which in turn can affect they’re driving abilities (Older Drivers , 2012).
Jaspal, S. (2012, March 14). Risk Management Failures in Kingfisher Airlines. In Risk Board. Retrieved March 26, 2014, from
Again, it makes the headlines; an older driver causes a dangerous automobile crash. As the amount of elderly driving has increased in the past decade, the risk for others to be out on the road has increased. In 2012, there were 36 million licensed older drivers in the United States. (Federal Highway Administration, Department of Transportation (US)) As a 34% increase from 1999, it has been noted that seniors are driving past their ability by an average of 10 years. (Federal Highway Administration, Department of Transportation (US)). Elderly continue to drive despite the prominent physiological changes that worsen as they age. The amount of automobile collisions suggests that prevention must occur in order to make the roads safer. By examining older drivers’ medical complications, older drivers must be retested to be able to drive a vehicle.
Environmental conditions play a vital part in aviation as a whole. Much planning goes into a flight based on the current and forecast weather conditions for safety reasons. Accidents have occurred due to flying in bad weather such as thunderstorms with low level wind sheer, lightning, hale, icing conditions and poor visibility. Poor weather especially icing can be very dangerous to flight but most accidents can be avoided if the right precautions are taken to avoid potential bad weather situations. I will take a closer look at icing conditions on aircraft and give examples of icing related accidents
Knapton, S 2014, ‘Brains of elderly slow because they know so much’ Telegraph Media Group, published in the Journal of Topics in Cognitive Science, viewed on the 22nd of march 2014
The present paper illustrates my reflections regarding the article “Memory and Aging: Selected Research Directions and Application Issues”, the third lecture “Psychosocial Issues”, and our class discussion. All of them brought up important issues regarding the psychological health of older adults, however, one theme was common across them: the role of social interaction on cognition and emotion.
“Young Drivers More Prone to Car Crashes Due to Their Underdeveloped Brains” 29 Apr 2010:
have a limited effect on the “flight schedule” as only about one third as many flights were
Airport planning, once carried out utilizing a single future forecast, failed to account for the complexity and uncertainty of the aviation industry. Today, it is widely assumed airport success can only be met through the utilization of a flexible, integrated planning approach that sees forecasts as incorrect.
Cognition is a process which is not just about thinking quickly and making risky decision but also includes the vocabulary skill, thinking critically, analyze data, problem solving, emotion recognition. For example: vocabulary skill usually peaks at 60s. Language is interesting but not easy to learn. It’s not a problem to learn a word, we can learn it for one or two seconds. However, when we learn 10, 100, 1000 or more words it truly a big problem. One of varieties skills which improve when we are old is critical thinking which is a very important skill in every aspects. Critical thinking depends on each person, because each of us has different knowledge, background, experience, and the ability to think but this skill can be trained if people focus more on it. Critical thinking usually peaks at 60s or early 70s, the same for analyze and solving problem (Jenna Birch, 2015). When people are old they are considered that their cognition become slowly gradually . Therefore, to make up for their shortage they use their critical thinking, solving problem skill… to from a strategy, carefully make a plan, look at different aspect to make decisions which are mostly right and effective. If there brain decline they are definitely unable to do these complicated