Age Differences in the Rate of Gain of Information, Signal Detection Strategy and Cardiovascular Status among Pilots

Abstract

A description is given of work in progress which aims to sketch an "ageing profile" of capacities of professional pilots from the standpoint of cardiovascular and pulmonary physiology and of experimental psychology. The design of the psychological experiments is intended to reflect the fact that flying requires, inter alia, making high-speed decisions and detecting low probability and low intensity signals, as well as an ability to receive and retain significant amounts of information in the course of routine control procedures. Measures of "reserve channel capacity " and "threshold resistance" reveal that in a sample of some 200 active pilots, age differences are less impressive than would be expected from gerontological literature. The individual differences in some of the relevant modalities of performance are related to cardiovascular status among perfectly healthy men. Some methodological implications of these data are briefly considered.