ROLE OF MEMORY IN AIR-TRAFFIC-CONTROL

En route air traffic controllers serving as instructors at the Federal Aviation Administration Academy were tested to determine what they re membered about the aircraft in their sector. The study focused on memo ry for flight data (aircraft altitude and ground speed) and aircraft p osition on the radar. Aircraft importance, but not frequency of intera ction, affected memory for flight data; neither variable affected reca ll of the aircraft's radar position. It was hypothesized that controll ers use their memory for aircraft position to classify aircraft as imp ortant (potential traffic) or not. Information that is not represented spatially (e.g,, altitude) is filtered by importance. In addition, a task-relevant filter facilitates encoding other information (ground sp eed) if it is pertinent. Results have implications for improving the i nterpretation of techniques that assess situation awareness by assessi ng the amount remembered.