Co-operation processes in dynamic environment management: evolution through training experienced pilots in flying a highly automated aircraft.

Abstract

Dynamic environment management (process control, aircraft piloting, etc.) increasingly implies collective work components. Pragmatic purposes as well as epistemological interests raise important questions on collective activities at work. In particular, linked to the technological evolution in flight management, the role of the 'collective fact' appears as a key point in reliability. Beyond the development of individual competencies, the quality of the 'distributed' crew activity has to be questioned. This paper presents an empirical study about how experienced pilots co-ordinate their information and actions during the last period of training on a highly automated cockpit. A task of disturbance management (engine fire during takeoff) is chosen as amplifying cognitive requirements. Analysis focuses on the transitions between the main task and the incident to be managed. Crew performance and co-operation between two pilots are compared in three occurrences of the same task: the results are coherent with the hypothesis of a parallel evolution of the crew performance and its internal co-operation, and show that prescribed explicit co-operation is more present on action than on information about the 'state of the world'. Methodological issues are discussed about the possible effects of the specific situation of training, and about the psychological meaning of the results.