Flight Simulation Task Performance Predicts Military Multitasking Better Than Laboratory Measures

Proficient multitasking abilities are essential for conducting military operations. Air Force pilots, for instance, must monitor control panels and respond to radio messages while steering an aircraft. Moreover, infantry soldiers need to collaborate in teams in addition to executing orders. Whether both conditions require the same multitasking abilities is unclear. This raises the question, which mechanism accounts for efficient multitasking behavior. One answer may be that individuals possess a general multitasking ability, enabling them to conduct multitasking at more or less the same level of proficiency regardless of task requirements. Likewise, multitasking performance in military operations may be influenced by the proficiency in employing task-specific skills and abilities to handle high workload conditions, suggesting that only individuals with a certain skill set may be suitable for specific military tasks. Determining which account predicts military multitasking best, may significantly improve soldiers’ success rate. To address this, we recruited 25 officer cadets to perform multitasking in three different environments (laboratory, flight simulation, shooting gallery). In the laboratory, individuals needed to solve math problems and memorize radio signals separately and concurrently. In the flight simulation, individuals steered a hair cross (representative for an aircraft) using a joystick. Additionally, they had to respond to control panels and radio signals, and monitor a tank system. In the shooting gallery, the cadets had to solve math problems and memorize radio signals while shooting at ring targets. Laboratory multitasking and military performance were operationalized by means of a modified version of the multitasking throughput measure, allowing to compare performance modulations across different task conditions. We expected that the cadets’ laboratory multitasking assessment predicted their military performance in the shooting gallery best, given that both settings shared similar task requirements. To test this hypothesis, we conducted Bayesian regression analyses. In contrast to our expectation, we found that a compound score of the flight performance measures predicted military performance best. Both measures also correlated with military service duration. This effect implies that military performance may be related to a general multitasking ability. But further research will be required to test if this effect also translates to other military occupational fields.