Degraded States of Engagement in Air Traffic Control
Résumé
Safety studies have identified attention as a recurring cause of incidents and accidents in
air traffic control. However, little is known of the precise attentional states that lead to degraded
ATC performance. Therefore, we surveyed 150 French en route air traffic controllers on the causes of
and impacts on perceived cooperation, safety, and performance of seven degraded attentional states
from the literature: task-related and task-unrelated mind wandering, mental overload, inattentional
deafness and blindness, attentional entropy, and perseveration. Our findings indicated that task-
related and task-unrelated mind wandering were the most prevalent but had the least impact on
perceived safety. Conversely, inattentional blindness and attentional entropy were less reported
but were considered a significant safety concern, while inattentional deafness affected cooperation.
Most states were experienced in workload levels consistent with the literature. However, no other
factor such as shift work was identified as a cause of these states. Overall, these findings suggest
that “attention” is not a specific enough subject for ATC, as attentional issues can occur in various
conditions and have different impacts. As far as safety is concerned, inattentional blindness should
be the prime target for further research. Neuroergonomics in particular could help develop dynamic
countermeasures to mitigate its impact.
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