Flight Training - April 2014 - 49

INSTRUCTOR REPORT

State-dependent learning
Help your students to recapture memories
» By Rod Machado

IT WAS EARLY in the 1970s during
my initial CFI checkride when the
FAA inspector asked for a departure stall demonstration. I obliged.
Just as the stall was about to break,
the inspector sneakily pushed the
left rudder pedal to the floor. The
airplane went over on its back and
began to spin.
In a mental fog of my own making, I sat motionless, doing nothing.
After one full rotation it hit me.
Spin! I recovered from the spin
but remained nonplussed at my
inability to recognize what had just
happened to me.
My experience can be traced
to a theory in psychology known
as state-dependent learning. The
theory posits that we retrieve memories more effectively when we are
in the same state of consciousness
that existed when those memories
were formed.
For instance, suppose you
learn something while under the
influence of caffeine. This theory
suggests that you'll be more likely
to recall that information after consuming caffeine. When molecules
flowing through our veins (caffeine, alcohol, adrenaline, et cetera)
change our state of consciousness,
they also change the way our neural
pathways code memories. To have
immediate and full access to those
memories, we need to return to that
same mental state.
For instance, suppose you learn
stall/spin recovery techniques in
a relatively relaxed mental state.
Now release adrenaline into your
veins by having Ned the Fed shock
you by unexpectedly placing the
airplane into a spin. You're now
in a highly aroused emotional
state (who wouldn't be?), which
makes access to your stall/spin

recovery memories (skills) less
efficient.
As a flight instructor, you probably see the contradiction this
theory presents when training
student pilots. On one hand, you
want to keep the anxiety level low
during stall practice. On the other,
if your students learn spin recovery
behavior in this emotional state,
they might be less likely to behave
properly when they unexpectedly
stall or spin an airplane (a different
state of consciousness). What's a
CFI to do?
My suggestion is to purposely
and responsibly incorporate a
higher state of arousal in the latter

demonstrations to broaden the
emotional range of your student's
stall recovery behavior if and when
a stall occurs in the real world.
There are many other ways to
induce arousal without scaring
your students (please don't scare
your students). For instance, have
your student begin a steep turn at
45 degrees of bank and change the
direction of turn every 15 seconds.
Start this maneuver at 10 knots
above the stall speed for 45 degrees
of bank. Instruct him to reduce
power by 100 rpm every time he
changes the direction of turn. The
idea is to distract him so that he
doesn't pay attention to the stall

IN 75 PERCENT OF THE STALL/SPIN ACCIDENTS WHERE THE PILOT
SURVIVED, HE DIDN'T RECALL HEARING THE STALL HORN.
part of a student's stall/spin training (do this after the student has
learned the basics of stall recovery).
You can do this by using a technique
known as "induced arousal."
One way to induce arousal is to
climb to 3,000 feet agl, then have
your student begin a power-off
descent to 2,000 feet agl (or whatever altitude you feel is safe and
appropriate here). Inform the student that, upon reaching 2,000 feet,
he is to level off and hold altitude
for 30 seconds using the elevator
only, and no power.
Whenever I ask a student to do
this, he invariably focuses on the
clock and altimeter to the exclusion
of the stall horn and the assorted
pre-stall warning clues. The most
common response produced by this
demonstration is a nearly immobile
student-one who sits there holding
the yoke aft while the airplane performs a few falling-leaf type stalls.
It only takes one or two of these

clues he'd typically recognize under
non-aroused conditions. If you set
this up properly, your student won't
see the stall coming. Let his poststall response (or lack of it) play
out as long as necessary for him to
see how he behaves in his current
emotional state.
Years ago NASA did a study
suggesting that in 75 percent of
the stall/spin accidents where
the pilot survived, he didn't recall
hearing the stall horn. It's reasonable to posit that the pilot's state
of consciousness at the time of the
stall (think adrenaline rush here)
might have diminished his full
and immediate access to his stall
recovery memories-memories
possibly learned under lessaroused conditions.
Rod Machado is a flight instructor, author,
educator, and speaker. He has been a pilot
since 1970 and a CFI since 1973.
Visit his blog (www.rodmachado.com).

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