Cognitive Styles and the Acquisition of a Complex Aerial Maneuver

Abstract

Approximately equal number of male (45) and female (43) Air Force Academy cadets learned a complex aerial maneuver (chandelle) on a desk-top flight simulator. These cadets had participated in a previous experiment (Koonce & Berry, 1980) where they were given a battery of tests which tapped several cognitive and perceptual-motor areas. Of special interest in the present study was the relationship of the various congitive factors to the rate of acquisition of the complex aerial maneuver. Prior to the introduction of the complex maneuver all subjects were trained to criterion level on four basic instrument flight maneuvers (Koonce & McCley, 1980). Then they learned how to fly the complex maneuver with the number of trials required to reach criterion performance as the dependent variable. Results indicated cognitive factors were very significant in predicting complex maneuver performance. Additionally, individually tailoring the regression equations by sex as opposed to utilizing a general overall regression equation greatly enhanced predictive capability.

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