ABSTRACT
Considerable improvements in safety-in-the-air situations can be expected through better ergonomics, better work environments, and other efforts that directly affect human behavior and performance. The employed formalisms, with the appropriate modifications and generalizations, are applicable not only in the avionic and even not only in the vehicular domain, but in many other human performance-related situations, when a human encounters an uncertain and often harsh environment and has to make a decision under a more or less significant time pressure. Amalberti attributes the mental workload (MWL), when addressing cognitive anticipation stress, to the difference between the actual (real-life) anticipation and planning: while planning aims at designing solutions in order to lead one's activity, anticipation aims at testing this solution using assessments of situation's evolution. Cognitive overload has been recognized as a significant cause of error in aviation, and therefore, measuring the MWL has become a key method of improving safety.
