Cognitive Performance Research at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, 1960-2009

By James C. Miller

One of the research groups at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, focused on human cognitive performance. The group was formed within the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) and was eventually part of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). This historical review uses an annotated bibliography format to summarize the work of that group from its founding in about 1960 through its closing in 2009. Also included are summaries of the genealogy of the group, the careers of the two principal scientists who led the group, Bryce O. Hartman and William F. Storm, brief biographies of scientists who influenced the group's research foci, the devices and techniques used by the group, and the group's technical contributions in: applied psychology; environmental stressors; man in space; psychopharmacology and performance; psychophysiology; sleep and circadian rhythms, including fatigue modeling; sustained operations and fatigue in aircrews and also in ground operations, including work scheduling; spatial orientation and situational awareness; team performance, including effects of fatigue; and human systems integration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James C. Miller
• Release date: Mar 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301054664

James C. Miller

I conducted 45 years of applied research and development concerning human cognitive performance and fatigue. I focused mainly on the measurement and analysis of human physical and cognitive performance in military and civil aviation; highway, rail and maritime transportation; and night and shift work. Operator fatigue was at the center of my interests after my days as an Air Force pilot in the C-130E Hercules tactical transport in Vietnam. I'm also the author of "Fatigue" in McGraw-Hill's Controlling Pilot Error series (2001), and the ASIS CRISP report "Fatigue Effects and Countermeasures in 24/7 Security Operations" (2010). In 2018-2021 I taught Physiology as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Life Sciences, Texas &M University-Corpus Christi.

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Cognitive Performance Research at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, 1960-2009

James C. Miller, Ph.D., CPE

Published by James C. Miller at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 James C. Miller

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Cover Photographs

Above, another Lockheed C-130E Hercules follows me into Bu Dop airfield, Republic of Vietnam, on 6 July 1970, landing on pierced-steel planking (PSP). The red dirt in the air is blown forward through the PSP by reverse thrust from the propellers. Reverse thrust is used to stop in the shortest distance possible. This photo was taken on 35-mm slide film with a Mamiya-Sekor 1000DTL camera. (James C. Miller)

Below, the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) buildings at the

northwest corner of Brooks AFB, looking southeast. Building 170, home of the cognitive performance research group, is the large, tan-roofed building at the upper left with the taller, rectangular high bay on the back left portion of the building. (USAF)

Cognitive Performance Research at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, 1960-2009

James C. Miller, Ph.D., CPE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Academic Genealogy

Principal Scientists

Techniques and Devices

Technical Contributions

Applied Psychology

Environmental Stressors

Human Systems Integration

Man in Space

Psychopharmacology and Performance

Psychophysiology

Sleep and Circadian Rhythms

Sustained Operations and Fatigue in Aircrews

Sustained Operations and Fatigue in Ground Operations

Spatial Orientation and Situational Awareness

Team Performance

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

References

Cognitive Performance Research at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, 1960-2009

James C. Miller, Ph.D., CPE

INTRODUCTION

Brooks Air Force Base (AFB), located on the south side of San Antonio, Texas, served as the focal point for U.S. Air Force (USAF) aerospace medical training and research for many decades, before closing as a result of the U.S. Department of Defense 2005 Base Re-alignment and Closure (BRAC). One of the research groups at Brooks AFB focused on human cognitive performance. This historical review uses an annotated bibliographic approach to summarize the work of that group from its founding in about 1960 through its closing in 2009. The group published hundreds of technical reports and a large number of articles in refereed journals. Sources used for this review included three file boxes of technical and letter reports, curriculum vitae of former staff, the archives of Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed resource, Google Advanced Scholar, and interviews

This is not an exhaustive review. Many technical reports were limited in distribution to government personnel and contractors, and the group prepared many letter reports for operational units and accident investigation boards; only a few of these reports are discussed here. A benefit of the reference list presented here is that it links most of the group’s laboratory technical report numbers with DTIC accession numbers. This connection is lacking in most published reference lists. Also, the scientists in the group mentored countless master’s degree and similar projects over the years; few of those are summarized here.

Prior to dealing with the technical contributions of the group, I have described the genealogy of the group, and outlined the careers of the two principal scientists who led the group, Bryce O. Hartman and William F. Storm. Brief biographies of other scientists who influenced the research interests of the group are presented also.

ACADEMIC GENEALOGY

The cognitive performance research group at Brooks AFB was the offspring of a union between the Psychology Branch of the Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright Field in Dayton and Ohio State University, and a nephew of the U.S. Army’s aviation psychology program. Captain Harry G. Armstrong founded the U.S. Army Air Corps Physiological Research Unit in the Aero Medical Laboratory in 1935. That unit conducted the first studies of human performance under the special environmental conditions of flight (Society for Military Psychology, 2009). During World War II, the unit was assisted by a number of environmental physiologists who had trained at the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory, which operated from 1927 through 1947. These scientists included O.O. Benson, Jr., D.B. Dill, F.G. Hall, J.W. Wilson, and V. Guillemin (S. M. Horvath & E. C. Horvath, 1973).

In about 1940, John Flanagan set up a large aviation psychology program for the Army. In World War II (WWII), Arthur Melton entered active duty and became the Chief of the Department of Psychology in the Army’s School of Aviation Medicine (SAM) at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas. This department investigated the use of psychomotor tests to predict aptitude for flying (Roscoe, 1997; Society for Military Psychology, 2009). Melton left active duty and returned to academia at Ohio State in 1946, but continued his interest in military psychology. The Department of Experimental Psychology was disbanded by the SAM commander in the summer of 1957 (personal communication, Richard G. Pearson, 5 Oct 2009).

Meanwhile, in 1945, the Aero Medical Laboratory had established a Psychology Branch, directed by Lt Col Paul Fitts. The staff included Major Walter F. Grether and 1st Lieutenant Wilse B. (Bernie) Webb among 21 officers, 25 enlisted, and 10 civilians. Born in Martin, TN, in 1912, Paul M. Fitts, Jr., earned his B.S from the University of Tennessee in 1934, his M.S. from Brown University in 1936, and his doctorate from the University of Rochester in 1938. He was a faculty member at Ohio State University and later at the University of Michigan. He developed a model of human movement, Fitt's Law, based on rapid, aimed movement, which went on to become one of the most highly successful and well studied mathematical models of human motion. By focusing his attention on human factors during his time as Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force, Fitts became known as one of the pioneers in improving aviation safety. He was President of Division 21 (Division of Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA), in 1957-1958. The association now has a Paul Fitts honorary award. Fitts was president of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in 1962-1963, and passed away unexpectedly in 1965 at the age of 53.

In 1949 Fitts left active duty and opened the Laboratory of Aviation Psychology at Ohio State University, lured there by Melton. In 1952, Bryce O. Hartman, Charles W. Simon and Oscar Adams received the first doctorates awarded by that Laboratory (Roscoe, 1997). At the end of that decade, Bryce Hartman originated the cognitive performance research group at Brooks.

PRINCIPAL SCIENTISTS

The two principal scientists who sustained the cognitive performance research group at Brooks across the decades were Bryce O. Hartman, the group’s founder, and William F. Storm, who was mentored by and succeeded Hartman and led the group in the Hartman tradition. Bryce O. Hartman was born in 1924, in Detroit, Michigan. He attended North High School in Akron, Ohio, graduating in the class of 1942. He flew as a naval aviator from June 1943 to September 1947 and was a World War II veteran. He earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1949 from Ohio State University and then his master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology in 1951 and 1952, respectively, from Ohio State, studying with Paul Fitts. He served as an Army officer and experimental psychologist at the U.S. Army Medical Field Service School at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, TX, from July 1952 to March 1953. From March 1953 to July 1957, Captain Hartman served as Assistant Chief of the Army Medical Research Laboratory’s Psychology Department, Fort Knox, KY. With Paul Fitts, he published the report, Relation of stimulus and response amplitude to tracking performance (1955). At Fort Knox, he was first author on the following reports, published in 1955 through 1957:

- Analysis of abductive and adductive phases of movement in continuous tracking.

- The effect of target frequency on pursuit tracking.

- The effect of target frequency on compensatory tracking.

- The effect of the extent of movement (control sensitivity) on pursuit tracking performance.

- Beta, a special purpose computer for studies in the control of complex equipment.

- Performance with light-weight grenades as a function of weight and distance.

- Graphic time on target: a tracking score with both qualitative and quantitative aspects.

In 1949, the Air Training Command of the newly-established U.S. Air Force had folded two WWII research and development entities into the Human Resources Research Center (HRRC) at Lackland and Randolph AFBs in San Antonio and at other bases. By June 1950, Arthur Melton was the Technical Director of HRRC. On 1 February 1954, two other units were added to the HRRC and it became the AF Personnel Training Research Center (AFPRTC), headquartered at Lackland AFB with Melton as its Technical Director (Brokaw & Perrigo, 1981). The Personnel Laboratory was transferred to the Wright Air Development Center on 1 January 1958. The AFPTRC and the Operator Laboratory were dis-established on 15 April 1958. After a distinguished career, Dr. Melton returned to San Antonio in retirement and passed away there in 1978. The library of the American Psychological Association in Washington DC is named in Melton’s honor.

In July 1957, Hartman began his civil service career as an Air Force scientist, serving initially as a supervisory and experimental psychologist at the AFPTRC. This was a year in which the organizational structure of AFPTRC was in turbulence, leading to the resignation that year of a number of senior psychologists, including in September Dr. Melton, who was the Technical Director (Brokaw & Perrigo, 1981). During this period of turbulence, Hartman transitioned to the USAF School of Aviation Medicine (USAFSAM) at Brooks AFB, where he spent the remainder of his career as a supervisory and experimental psychologist. His transition may have occurred during or just before the summer of 1959, when SAM moved from Randolph AFB back to Brooks AFB. The Department of Experimental Psychology having been disbanded in the summer of 1957, Hartman worked initially in the Neuropsychiatry Branch of the Clinical Sciences Division.

Hartman’s first technical reports were submitted with Richard McKenzie for publication by SAM in April of 1960: An Exploratory Study of Sleep Characteristics in a Hypodynamic Environment (SAM technical report 60-68, October 1960) and An Apparatus for the Spiral Aftereffect Test (SAET; SAM technical report 60-69, September 1960). His first external publication from SAM was probably Observations in the SAM Two-Man Space Cabin Simulator III. System Operator Performance Factors, published in Aerospace Medicine (R. E. McKenzie, Hartman, & B. E. Welch, 1961). Richard E. McKenzie was an officer and scientist at USAFSAM through about 1969. He published with Hartman from about 1960 through about 1979. In the 1970s, McKenzie became a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center. San Antonio. He also conducted research for Silva International.

In 1960, Hartman was the Chief of the Psychology Section within the Neuropsychiatry Branch of USAFSAM. In 1966, he was the Chief of the Psychobiology Section of the Biodynamics Branch, Aerospace Medical Sciences Division. In 1969, he received the Aerospace Medical Association’s Longacre Award for his significant contributions to aviation safety (Aerospace Medicine, May 1969, pp. 577-578). In 1972, Hartman became the Chief of the Environmental Sciences Division’s Environmental Physiology Branch. From 1977 to 1981, he served as Chief of the Crew Technology Division (the re-named Environmental Sciences Division) in building 170 where he managed a comprehensive program that included research on altitude, acceleration and thermal effects, and the development of aircrew and ground crew protective equipment and chemical defense equipment. Subsequently, he worked as a senior scientist and then emeritus scientist for the Clinical Sciences Division’s Neuropsychiatry Branch.

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Dr. Bryce O. Hartman

Hartman published over 100 scientific articles and papers, including chapters in six books. While assigned to USAFSAM he conducted a series of pioneering research studies on aircrew fatigue and flight safety. He also conducted research on simulated space flight during the early days of NASA, and was among the first to scientifically document the adverse physical effects of weightlessness. Hartman was appreciated and respected among his colleagues as a consummate professional, pure of motive, intellectually honest, and understated. Bryce Hartman died of cancer in 1998 in San Antonio at the age of 74. He was a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association, of the American Psychological Association, and of the Society of USAF Psychologists

William F. Storm is a native of Waterloo, IA, born in 1940. His family relocated to San Diego,