Basic Aviation Psychology
Basic Aviation Psychology
The exam tests the chain from sensation to action: how information is perceived, attended to, stored, interpreted and turned into a decision. Expect questions on memory limits, hazardous attitudes, the DECIDE model and the difference between perception and judgement.
Information processing and attention
- Stages: sensation, perception, attention, working memory, decision, response. Bottlenecks create tunneling and omission errors.
- Selective attention filters relevant cues; divided attention is limited, which is why sterile flight deck rules exist.
- Perception is constructive: expectation and motivation can produce illusions and confirmation bias.
- Working memory is small (about 7 plus or minus 2 items) and fragile; long-term memory is schema-based. Checklists and SOPs are external memory aids.
Learning, motivation and personality
- Learning is reinforced by practice, feedback and meaningfulness; overlearning makes emergency drills automatic.
- Maslow's hierarchy (physiological, safety, social, esteem, self-actualisation) explains how unmet needs can dominate attention.
- Personality traits (Big Five: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) influence behaviour, but no trait predicts unsafe piloting alone. Hazardous attitudes (anti-authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, macho, resignation) are addressed with the antidote self-check.
Error, judgement and decision making
- Skill-based slips and lapses, rule-based mistakes, knowledge-based mistakes. Violations are intentional but not necessarily reckless.
- DECIDE: Detect, Estimate, Choose, Identify, Do, Evaluate. It is a decision loop, not a one-off choice.
- Risk assessment compares likelihood and severity; use a defensible go/no-go criterion rather than "it worked last time".
Worked example
A VFR flight faces lowering cloud and rising terrain. Detect the change; Estimate the time and fuel to divert; Choose alternatives; Identify the safest; Do it; Evaluate. Poor judgement would be continuing because the destination is close. The reasoning is that plan continuation bias grows with sunk cost, and the decision must be made against a pre-briefed criterion, not against how much has already been flown.
Traps
Do not confuse sensation with perception; do not describe working memory as unlimited; do not treat hazardous attitudes as personality disorders; do not use DECIDE as a five-step checklist with no evaluation loop; and do not assume a confident pilot is a safe decision maker.