Anr vs. Passive Communications Headsets: Investigation of Speech Intelligibility, Pilot Workload, and Flight Performance in an Aircraft Simulator

Cockpits of propeller-driven aircraft are often environments of high amplitude, low frequency-dominant engine noise. This noise can interfere with radio communications. Previous authors have examined the effect of active noise reduction (ANR) headsets on speech intelligibility in noise in the absence of the attentional demand from simultaneously-performed complex tasks such as flying an airplane. This experiment investigated the combined effects of various headsets (passive and ANR) on speech intelligibility, mental workload and flight performance in an aircraft simulator. Instrument-rated pilots were tasked with completing four 3.5-hour cross-country flight simulations, one for each of 4 headsets. Results indicated that ANR headsets (as a group) generally improved speech intelligibility and decreased mental workload over a passive headset; however, flight performance results showed a more complex relationship. One conclusion is that a well-designed ANR headset has measurable benefits as a tool to potentially improve pilot performance by fostering safer operations within aviation systems.