Simulations in aviation and medicine: Psychomotor and cognitive factors influencing use in training
Poster Presentation

Lisa Wise
MUVES Research Project, The University of Melbourne

James Quealy
MUVES Research Project, The University of Melbourne

     Abstract ID Number: 70
     Full text: Not available
     Last modified: May 30, 2007
     Presentation date: 07/07/2007 10:00 AM in Quad Maclauren Hall
     (View Schedule)

Abstract
Trainee pilots are selected on the basis of high ability and skill levels, and are engaged in high risk / high cost activities that are performed by relatively few people. There is a long history of simulator use in pilot training, but with the increasing sophistication of simulation capability, the extent to which simulation training can replace aircraft training time is under review. Similar selectivity, skill levels, risk factors and cost apply to other training cohorts for example, in medicine, where there is an increasing demand for, and use of high fidelity simulation in surgical and other training. This paper examines the concept of fidelity in the context of psychomotor skill acquisition in which multisensory information is used to guide complex motor responses. It will be argued that while high fidelity virtual reality simulations provide increasingly immersive environments to train cognitively penetrable aspects of skilled behaviour, simulations are not appropriate for the skill acquisition phase of training during which the cognitively impenetrable sensorimotor cues for skilled behaviour are learned. Although subject matter experts (trained pilots and surgeons) are expert in their subject matter, this does not give them any automatic insights into the underlying perceptuomotor processes relating to that expertise.