Emotional Stressor on Human Errors in Flight: A Heart Rate Variance Examination.

This study aimed to examine the effect of emotional stressor on human errors and arousal level in flight. 16 male pilot students were recruited as the participants whom were required to complete one flight scenarios with tasks in three different performance levels in low arousal (LA) and high arousal (HA) conditions (with or without emotional stressor) respectively. The photoplethysmograph physiological sensor was used to measure heart rate (HR) and heart rate variance (HRV) variables, the indicators of emotional arousal levels. The result indicated that emotional stressor can cause an increase in emotional arousal level and a decrease in human’s skill-based and rule-based errors. Besides there was a quadratic trend for low frequency normalized unit (LF(nu)) and the number of calculation deviation (NCD), a dimension of problem-based error, which provided a plausible explain for the non-significance of the decrease in problem-based errors between HA and LA condition combined with inverted U-shaped curve. These findings have potential applications in preventing human errors before they occur.