Evaluating Dynamic ‘Landing Gear Unsafe’ Auditory Alerts as a Defense Against Habituation

<p>Auditory alerts are widely used in today's daily routine. Unlike their visual counterparts, auditory alerts can be used to capture someone's attention, even though the user is not within visual range. As beneficial as auditory alerts can be, it is possible to become habituated to alerts. Habituation is the elimination of a response as a result of continuous exposure to a stimulus. In this small-scale study, methods to reduce pilot habituation to the 'landing gear unsafe' auditory alert were investigated. Ten subjects executed eight non-precision instrument approaches that exposed the subjects to the 'landing gear unsafe' auditory alert for a prolonged period of time. Subjects were exposed to four different landing gear auditory alerts: (a) a constant alert over time (control), (b) an alert that changed in pitch over time, (c), an alert that changed in loudness over time, and (d) an alert that changed in duration over time. During the study, the researcher tracked whether the subjects complied with all required procedures; afterwards, subjects completed a questionnaire about their perceptions of the alerts. The results showed the alert that changed in pitch over time yielded the most accurate procedures. The questionnaire data also favored the alert that changed in pitch over time.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Aeronautics

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis - Open Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Applied Aviation Sciences

Year

2012

Author dc:creator

• Fasano, Vincenzo

• landing gear
• habituation
• aviation safety
• Aviation
• Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.erau.edu/edt/65

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.erau.edu:edt-1064