A perceptual training module for pilot instrument scans

The current generation of young people have grown up with digital technologies and this has led to widespread consideration of how to use these technologies for education and training. We are interested in the potential for developing game-like training modules for deployment on personal digital devices to allow trainee pilots to practise information extraction skills for a variety of different contexts. The current study is based on an instrument scanning perceptual training module reported by Kellman and Kaiser (1994). While we expect that novices will be able to easily learn the instrument scanning tasks, it is important to ascertain whether their performance reflects an increased understanding of the flying situation, or just a correct choice learned implicitly within the context of the specific experimental tasks. If the latter, the possibility of negative transfer of gaming strategies to real world performance requires further examination.