title: Cognitive demands and the relationship between age and workload in apron control.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Apron controllers (ACs) determine the taxiways for aircraft entering the apron area until they reach their parking positions and vice versa. The aims of this study were to identify age-sensitive job requirements of apron control (Study 1), and to investigate the relationship between age of ACs and their workload (Study 2).
  
  
  METHODS
  Study 1: There were 14 experienced ACs who assessed the job requirements of apron control with the Fleishman-Job Analyses Survey. Additionally, during one shift, the number of parallel processed traffic data sets (indicating memory-load) and the number of delivered radio messages (indicating processing speed requirements) were assessed. Study 2: There were 30 ACs (age: 23-51 yr) who volunteered for trials during late shifts at an international airport. ACs assessed their subjective workload (NASA-Task Load Index) at four times during the shift and carried out an attention test (d2) before and after the shift. Moreover, their heart rate was assessed during the shift and in a reference period.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Study 1: Results indicate that apron control requires especially high levels of memory-load and processing speed. Study 2: Hierarchical regression analyses revealed a u-shaped relationship between age and subjective workload (beta = 0.59) as well as heart rate (beta = 0.33). Up to the age of about 35-37 yr, workload and heart rate decreased with age, but afterwards the relationship became positive. There was no association between chronological age and attention performance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a need for age adequate job design in apron control that should especially aim at the reduction of memory-load and processing speed.
authors.affiliation: Institute and Outpatient Clinic for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany. andreas.mueller@med.lmu.de
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Raluca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Petru
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Angerer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001359:Aviation; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D012044:Regression Analysis; D014938:Work Capacity Evaluation; D016526:Workload