Reward and Uncertainty Favor Risky Decision-Making in Pilots: Evidence from Cardiovascular and Oculometric Measurements

Abstract

In this paper we examined plan continuation error (PCE), a well known error made by pilots consisting in continuing the flight plan despite adverse meteorological conditions. Our hypothesis is that a large range of strong negative emotional consequences, including those induced by economic pressure, are associated with the decision to revise the flight plan and favor PCE. We investigated the economic hypothesis with a simplified landing task (reproduction of a real aircraft instrument) in which uncertainty and reward were manipulated. Heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV) and eye tracking measurements were performed to get objective clues both on the cognitive and emotional state of the volunteers. Results showed that volunteers made more risky decisions under the influence of the financial incentive, in particular when uncertainty was high. Psychophysiological examination showed that HR increased and total HRV decreased in response to the cognitive load generated by the task. In addition, HR also increased in response to the financially motivated condition. Eventually, fixation times increased when uncertainty was high, confirming the difficulty in obtaining/interpreting information from the instrument in this condition. These results support the assumption that risky-decision making observed in pilots can be, at least partially, explained by a shift from cold to hot (emotional) decision-making in response to economic constraints and uncertainty.

Sweet lies: neural, visual, and behavioral measures reveal a lack of self-control conflict during food choice in weight-concerned women

“…Our results showed that during the choices that posed no self-control dilemma the reaction times, fixation duration and number of gaze switches were higher compared to trials that did pose a self-control dilemma. It is well established that reaction times, fixation durations and number of gaze switches are higher in difficult tasks requiring the recruitment of cognitive resources (Panayiotou and Vrana, 2004; Causse et al, 2011). Furthermore, a cluster in the anterior cingulate cortex, which has previously been shown to activate during the perception of conflict (Botvinick et al, 2001; van Veen et al, 2001), was more strongly activated during trials that did not pose a self-control dilemma (NSC trials).…”

“…Secondly, implicit measures are less susceptible to demand characteristics and socially desirable responding (Fazio and Olson, 2003) than self-reported measures. Thirdly, ACC activity, reaction times, and fixation durations are well acknowledged measures to investigate response conflict (Kawashima et al, 1996; Macdonald et al, 2000; Botvinick et al, 2001; van Veen et al, 2001; Kerns et al, 2004; Panayiotou and Vrana, 2004; Causse et al, 2011). Finally, explicitly asking for response conflict during the food choices focusses attention on conflict which may also affect their choice.…”

“…As the perception of conflict is not necessarily a conscious phenomenon, we used measures that assess implicit cognitive (reaction times during food choice, reaction times in a lexical decision task), attentional (eye tracking) and neural processes [functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)]. Previous studies have demonstrated that response conflict in a task (i.e., task difficulty) is accompanied by higher reaction times (e.g., Panayiotou and Vrana, 2004), more gaze switches between items (e.g., Causse et al, 2011), and stronger activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (Botvinick et al, 2001; van Veen et al, 2001). Implicit measures are less susceptible to demand characteristics and socially desirable responding (Fazio and Olson, 2003).…”

Formal Detection of Attentional Tunneling in Human Operator–Automation Interactions

“…Three attentional tunneling metrics were employed in this study: the HR, the number of AOI (NBAOI) glanced at on the user interface, and the switching rate (SWR). The literature suggests that HR increases with psychological stress [28]- [34], and NBAOI and SWR decrease with attentional tunneling [17], [18]. The calculation of the Fig.…”

“…Participants from the TUN = 1 group were highly focused on the demanding identification task during S4 as revealed by the decrease of the NBAOI and SWR. Their inability to successfully perform this critical task generated stress [39], associated with the higher HR during S4 [28]- [34]. Conversely, participants from the TUN = 0 group did not faced such stress.…”