Initial Validation of Novel Performance-Based Measures: Mental Rotation and Psychomotor Ability

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Initial Validation of Novel Performance-Based Measures: Mental Rotation and Psychomotor Ability

P. G. Fatolitis / F. G. Jentsch / P. A. Hancock / R. S. Kennedy / C. Bowers

Given the high-risk nature of military flight operations and the significant resources required to train U.S. Naval Aviators and Flight Officers, personnel selection must continually be improved. In addition to general commissioning requirements and aeromedical standards, the U.S. Navy utilizes the Aviation Selection Test Battery (ASTB) to select commissioned aviation students. Although the ASTB has historically proven to be a good predictor of aviation student performance in training, it is proposed here that incremental improvement may be gained with the introduction of novel, computer administered performance-based measures: the Block Rotation Task (BRT) and a Navy-developed 2-D compensatory tracking task. This work constituted an initial validation of the two tasks. The BRT is an interactive virtual analog of Shepard-Metzler's (1971) mental rotation task. The 2-D tracking task is typical of what is found in the literature, but was developed by the U.S. Navy. The BRT was investigated for its suitability as a measure for quantifying both mental rotation and psychomotor ability. Data from the BRT were examined to determine task reliability and to formulate a quantitative/predictive performance model of combined human mental rotation and psychomotor ability. Data gathered from the compensatory tracking task were investigated to determine if they concord with results in extant literature, indicating the validity of the task. Results showed that both the BRT and the 2-D tracking tasks are measures of spatial ability. A descriptive performance model of the BRT is also presented.