Impairment of spatial cognitive function with preservation of verbal performance during spatial disorientation

Abstract

Spatial disorientation, which is responsible for up to 30% of aircraft accidents causes impairment of cognitive function which may further compromise a pilot�s ability to think his way out of the situation and regain control [1,]. The functional-anatomical separation of spatial and verbal processing [10,11] raises the possibility of selective interference between the task of resolving spatial disorientation and the ability to perform concurrent spatial, as opposed to verbal, secondary tasks. We report for the first time a degradation of spatial task performance with preservation of verbal performance when subjects in a simulator are disoriented by conflict between self- motion and visual flow in the view of the external environment.