ABSTRACT
The task of flying an aircraft involves observing and reacting to events that take place within the cockpit and in the environment outside the aircraft. The pilot is required to use the information that he senses in order to make the decisions and take the actions which will ensure the safe path of the aircraft at all times. This chapter aims to enable pilots to develop an awareness of the system by which we receive and process information in order to make decisions, together with the implications of this system for pilot workload assessment. All information processing models are based on the assumption of a series of stages or mental operations which occur between information being received by the senses and responses being made. Perception involves the conversion of the sensory information into meaningful structures; e.g. a pattern of sounds becomes recognized as a particular message.
