Immersive VR for Evaluating Spatial Ability, Situation Awareness, and Psychophysiological Responses in Naval Aviation: A Preliminary Study

This pilot study integrates immersive virtual reality (VR) and physiological measures to develop an improved measure of spatial ability (SpA) and situation awareness (SA) in U.S. Naval Aviation. Existing static measures often suffer from limitations such as obtrusiveness, ceiling/floor effects, and being disconnected from operational contexts, even though both SpA and SA are critical to U.S. Naval Aviation. Therefore, we developed Assessing Spatial Abilities in Naval Aviation ( ASANA ), a custom simulated environment where participants aerially navigate to waypoints using a reference map that rotates across multiple headings, providing a dynamic, realistic task to evaluate SpA. Additionally, the physiological signals of heart rate variability, skin conductance, pupillometry, and eye tracking were recorded to explore their potential as real-time SA indicators. Participants from U.S. Naval Aviation schoolhouses completed both established SpA assessments and a mission in ASANA. Preliminary findings show that navigation performance aligns with traditional SpA and SA metrics, and that physiological markers such as heart rate variability and skin conductance correlate with performance outcomes. Future work will assess larger samples and event-based analyses to better understand these constructs and inform training and selection protocols for U.S. Naval Aviation.