Crew

Cognitive resilience

Understanding cognitive resilience, decision-making, and adaptation in highly automated aviation systems.

This research investigates how flight crews maintain Cognitive Resilience (CR) in modern, highly automated cockpit environments. Through the development of the Crew Cognitive Resilience Index (CCRI™), the project brings together concepts such as Situation Awareness (SA)Decision Accuracy (DA)Adaptive Performance (AP)Cognitive Load (CL), and Trust Calibration (TC) within a systems-theoretic perspective. Using Systems-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) as an organising lens, the research examines how human performance emerges from the interaction between people, automation, procedures, and organisational context, particularly when automation becomes degraded or uncertain.

Defining and Strengthening Pilot Cognitive Resilience in Automated Cockpit: A Systems-Theoretic and Simulation-Based Study

Research Supervisors

Professor Quichin (Kit) Zhang, 

Professor of Inclusive AI

Director of the Centre of AI & Future Inclusive Technologies (AI-FIT)

Dr Liana Psarologaki

Associate Professor

Research and Impact Lead

Dr Nicklas Dahlström

Human Factors Manager

Emirates Flight Operations Training

From Analogue Dials to Digital Natives

Automation, assessment, and the unresolved question of cognitive resilience The cockpit did not evolve alone Commercial aviation is often described in technological generations. Early jets required continuous manual manipulation and mechanical interpretation. Integrated auto-flight systems shifted pilots into supervisory roles. Glass cockpits layered abstraction over raw data. Fly-by-wire introduced control laws that mediate pilot intent…

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Knowing What We Don’t Know:

Why Crew Cognitive Resilience Matters in an Automated Aviation System? Modern aviation is often described as data-rich, highly regulated, and increasingly automated. In many respects, this is true, and it has delivered extraordinary levels of safety and efficiency. Yet these same characteristics raise an important and often under-examined question: What happens when safety and resilience…

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Research Impact

Can you help? This research examines how pilots sustain Cognitive Resilience (CR) in increasingly automated cockpit environments and seeks to support clearer, evidence-informed understanding of this capability. Through the development of the Crew Cognitive Resilience Index (CCRI™), the project aims to provide a structured framework for studying how situational awareness, decision accuracy, and adaptive performance are maintained when…

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