8.2 PBM: Tracking, Dichotic Listening, and Multitasking Strategy

The core of the Performance-Based Measures (PBM) battery lies in its intense evaluation of your psychomotor skills and raw multitasking capabilities. Naval aviation constantly demands the simultaneous execution of complex motor tasks while processing rapid, dynamic auditory and visual information. The tracking, dichotic listening, and emergency procedure tasks within the PBM are explicitly designed to stress your cognitive load to its absolute limits, revealing exactly how well you perform under operational pressure.

Continuous Tracking Tasks

The primary psychomotor component involves continuous tracking using a hands-on throttle and stick (HOTAS) configuration, along with rudder pedals. This rigorously simulates the continuous control inputs required to maintain aircraft attitude, heading, and altitude in turbulent conditions or during precise maneuvers like aerial refueling.

Joystick (Stick) Tracking

In this task, you are presented with a target on a screen—often a crosshair, reticle, or a moving square. Your objective is to keep your own cursor perfectly centered on this moving target using the joystick. The joystick controls pitch (forward/back) and roll (left/right).

• Compensatory Tracking: The target moves erratically and unpredictably in two dimensions. You must constantly make small, precise corrections to stay centered. Over-controlling, gripping the stick too tightly, or making large, jerky movements will cause your cursor to overshoot the target, heavily penalizing your score.
• Pursuit Tracking: You are required to follow a target moving along a complex but continuous path. The key here is anticipation and smooth, fluid input rather than reactive, disjointed corrections.

Rudder Pedal Tracking

Simultaneously, or in separate grueling phases, you must use rudder pedals to control a secondary target or maintain a heading. Rudder pedals control the yaw axis of an aircraft. In the ASTB-E, pushing the left pedal might move a reticle left, while pushing the right pedal moves it right.

• Cross-Coupling Challenge: The true difficulty emerges when you must perform joystick and rudder tracking simultaneously. This cross-coupling requires your hands and feet to operate completely independently but in coordinated harmony, mimicking the profound coordination required for a proper, balanced turn in a fixed-wing aircraft or maintaining a stable hover in a rotary-wing aircraft.

Dichotic Listening

While you are actively engaged in the demanding visual-motor tracking tasks, the PBM introduces insidious auditory distractions through a headset, creating a high-stress dichotic listening environment.

The Dual-Ear Challenge

You will hear entirely different streams of audio in your left and right ears simultaneously. Typically, one stream consists of a rapid series of letters and numbers, while the other stream consists of a completely different series.

• Target Selection: You will be strictly instructed to attend to only one ear (e.g., 'Listen to the letters and numbers in your left ear only').
• Specific Triggers: You must continuously listen for specific trigger sequences, such as an even number immediately followed by a vowel, or a specific phonetic callsign. When you hear the trigger in the designated ear, you must instantly press a corresponding button (often located on the throttle or stick) while entirely ignoring any similar triggers presented in the non-designated ear.

This task is a direct assessment of selective attention—your ability to willfully filter out irrelevant stimuli and focus completely on critical information. This is a vital, non-negotiable skill when communicating with Air Traffic Control while managing loud cockpit alarms, roaring engines, and secondary co-pilot chatter.

Emergency Procedures and Multitasking

The ultimate test in the PBM occurs when tracking, listening, and emergency procedures are ruthlessly combined into a single, high-stress evolution. This represents the peak cognitive load of the entire ASTB-E.

The Emergency Procedure Task

During the multitasking phase, you will occasionally be presented with a sudden visual or auditory 'emergency' signal—such as a specific light flashing on the periphery of the screen, a gauge dropping into the red zone, or a unique, blaring auditory tone.

• Immediate Action Items: You must immediately respond to these emergencies by executing a specific, previously memorized sequence of inputs (e.g., pulling the throttle to zero, pressing button A, and pulling the stick fully back).
• Strict Prioritization: The defining characteristic of this task is that the emergency takes absolute precedence over the tracking task. You must momentarily abandon or heavily deprioritize perfect tracking to resolve the emergency, and then immediately and seamlessly resume tracking once the emergency is effectively cleared.

Cognitive Strategies for Multitasking

Excelling in the PBM multitasking phase is not simply about having fast reflexes; it requires highly strategic cognitive resource allocation.

1. The 'Scan' Technique: Similar to a pilot's foundational instrument scan, you must constantly keep your eyes moving. Do not fixate solely on the tracking target. Develop a disciplined rhythm where you track, briefly glance at the emergency indicators on the periphery, and return to tracking, all while keeping your auditory processing fully engaged.
2. Smooth, Small Inputs: In tracking, muscular tension is the enemy of precision. Maintain a light, relaxed grip on the joystick. Small, smooth corrections require significantly less cognitive bandwidth than wild overcorrections, leaving you more mental capacity for the auditory and emergency tasks.
3. Compartmentalization: When an emergency occurs, you must instantly switch mental contexts. Do not worry about your tracking score dropping during the crucial seconds it takes to execute the emergency procedure. Resolve the issue methodically and accurately, then aggressively re-engage the tracking task.
4. Accepting Imperfection: The PBM is specifically designed to be overwhelming. You will inevitably miss auditory triggers. Your tracking cursor will repeatedly fall off the target. The system evaluates exactly how you recover from these inevitable failures. Frustration leads to a catastrophic cascading breakdown in overall performance. Maintain cold emotional control, rapidly acknowledge the error, and immediately focus all your energy on the next required input.

By practicing continuous partial attention and developing a systematic approach to prioritization, you can train your brain to handle the immense cognitive load of the PBM, demonstrating the fundamental psychological aptitude required for rigorous naval flight training.