Preliminary Evaluation of Two Dichotic Listening Tasks as Predictors of Performance in Naval Aviation Undergraduate Pilot Training

摘要

Aircraft pilots must divide their attention among a wide range of auditory inputs. Dichotic listening tasks (DLTs) have been proposed to assess selective attention performance and to predict the probability of success of aviation candidates in flight training programs. A preliminary evaluation has been conducted of two dichotic listening tasks on a subject population about to enter the Naval Aviation Undergraduate Pilot Training Program. This report presents the results of that evaluation, describes the statistical properties of the two DLTs, and presents estimates of their utility as predictors of human performance in Naval Aviation Undergraduate Pilot Training. Results indicate that both DLTs are reliable and are unrelated to present selection tests. One DLT was significantly related to the successful completion of Naval Aviation Undergraduate Pilot Training. Future research should investigate the behavioral constructs being measured by the DLTs. Is selective attention, auditory vigilance, motivation, or speech intelligibility being measured. In addition, a comparison of DLTs utilizing both natural and synthetic speech should be undertaken to determine the effect of vocal quality on DLT performance. (Author)