Speed and Accuracy in Decision Responses of Men and Women Pilots

The decision response time and accuracy of 54 civilian pilots were measured to determine if there were any differences in the performance of male and female pilots. A series of 30 transparencies required each subject to make a decision regarding aircraft attitude on the basis of information provided by pictures of three flight instruments. No differences of statistical significance were found between the performance of men and women under any of the experimental conditions. Performance data do suggest, howover, that in a task requiring both speed and accuracy, women are more accurate than men initially and gain in speed with experience, while men respond more quickly than women dining early trials and improve in accuracy as the trials continue.