Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Russell Lindsey | A naval aviation candidate uses a virtual reality (VR) testing station equipped with...... read more read more
PENSACOLA, Fla. – Images of hot-shot aviators pushing the outer limits of aircraft performance have been popularized through Hollywood films and popular culture, and while there are many traits that hold true, there is a grounded aspect that many overlook. How does the U.S. Navy select and retain the most talented, capable and valuable assets in the Navy’s aviation platform: the pilot?
In 1949, Gilbert Ryle, a former British intelligence officer and philosopher, proposed the mind is not a distinct substance but an expression of the body's integrated activities, coining the term “Ghost in the Machine” as a way to describe the non-physical mind.
In today’s world of artificial intelligence and rapidly advancing technology, many of which can allow wireless control over the physical, the lines to physical and non-physical science are blurring more than ever. How exactly these processes are done is also beginning to blend as well and one’s imagination might paint a picture of an enormous apparatus with huge buildings, sophisticated algorithms, and an army of scientists in white coats. The reality in contrast is calmer and much more focused. Housed in a quiet and unassuming department within the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute (NAMI) and located onboard Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola is the Department of Operational Psychology, manned by a small but talented few dialing-in the “secret sauce” that keeps the Navy staffed with the best applicants to keep on the razor’s edge in the sky.
Testing centers and back-of-house data crunching are often proprietary and are usually assumed to be places to remain unseen by most people, but the department’s lab is actually quite open and collaborative across the DoD, just not widely publicized. The next question that might come to mind is, “who are these mysterious persons of unknown specialty?”. The answer is the Navy’s Aerospace Experimental Psychologists (AEPs).
These aerospace specialists are PhD-level behavioral scientists who study and seek to optimize the performance, safety, and effectiveness of humans operating in the aerospace environment. Simply put, they are the experts on the human element and what makes us tick, the "ghost in the machine", focusing on how to best integrate a person with ever-changing complex aviation systems and platforms which require faster and more in-depth ability than ever and figuring out how to select them based on data.
AEPs are essentially the mechanics focused on a candidate’s mind. They run and shape the Aviation Selection Test Battery (ASTB) and provide insights to the educational bodies to help decide who is the best fit and who gets a shot at becoming a pilot or flight officer for the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.
To provide some context of why the selection process is so important and how daunting this endeavor requires an understanding that training and maintaining just one miliary aviator can cost in the tens of millions of dollars, according to a 2019 National Defense Research Institute (NDRI) report. Every year, over 7,000 people take the ASTB, and only about 1,000 make it to a training spot. The cost of training all those applicants vying to be one of the select few is also weighed in the vast amounts of time and energy that are poured into them by the Navy’s extensive support and training networks, so there every incentive to make every dollar and every second count. Considering the investment that pilots and flight officers receive, getting selection criteria and testing “just right” can save the Navy and the Department of Defense substantial amounts of money and resources.
Finely tuned testing is just that, tuned. It requires the understanding that as the battlespace grows, so too does the application of the selection criteria that deliver the best candidates. This small department may not have fanciful and futuristic digital displays everywhere, or an army of technicians using test tubes, but they do run one of the busiest behavioral research labs in the country where the DNA of the ASTB is constantly being upgraded to meet the operational demands of airwings of the future. Their mission to continually validate and modernize the ASTB while advancing new scientific tools that benefit selection, training, and the study of human performance in Naval Aviation has been one of the driving forces at the core of NAMI and its parent command the Navy Medicine Operational Training Command (NMOTC) for much of its history.
It’s a legacy that stretches back to the dawn of military aviation when psychologists armed with clipboards and stopwatches to measure reaction times were instrumental in shaping modern ability testing. From helping to pick pilots during WWII and designing the exhaustively extensive cognitive tests that selected the first astronauts for the Mercury Program, aerospace psychology continues to help quietly drive the Navy’s pursuit of the heavens. Today, the team at NAMI continues that work, not with stopwatches, but with a new tool, virtual reality (VR).
While integration of the concept of VR isn’t new to Navy Medicine or NMOTC, it’s application of the data collected and advancing of the program used is what is yielding new insights into aviation and beyond.
During summer 2025, a Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program (NREIP) intern named Allison Bayro joined the NAMI team as part of a STEM-internship program in conjunction with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). A biomedical engineering PhD candidate from Arizona State, Bayro arrived with a unique background in physiological sensing and VR. She was paired with Warfighter Applied Cognition and Technology Section Head Joseph Coyne, Ph.D. at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and was tasked with a project that felt more like science fiction than psychology: Assessing Spatial Abilities in Naval Aviation, otherwise known as ASANA.
ASANA is not a European hot spa or even a test; it’s a world. Users step into an immersive virtual reality cockpit and the outside world vanishes. The mission is to navigate, track and adapt to stimuli while the system watches a user process everything. ASANA provides a high-resolution look at the human engine in a manner of speaking, capturing a symphony of data in real time, such as eyes darting across screens, the subtle physical rotation of a person’s head while tracking objects and moving targets, and even the flutters in heart rate when the mission changes or a person is prompted to solve ever more complex problems.
“My work blends physiological sensing with virtual reality to measure and improve human behavior and system interaction,” said Bayro. “Aviation is an ideal applied context—high-stakes, safety-critical, and perfect for dynamic simulation.”
This multi-sensor approach gives researchers the real-time, raw, unfiltered truth of individuals’ performance and is helping to shape training and find the blind spots of current testing. The application of ASANA can be likened to the difference between looking at a recipe and actually tasting the dish by the program delivering experiential data of the subject.
“We’re collecting high-resolution evidence of how people navigate, think, and adapt,” said Bayro. “That’s something static tests simply can’t provide.”
Work this ambitious doesn't happen in a vacuum, it requires an ecosystem. The project is a collaboration between the AEP officers at NAMI: Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca NeSmith; Lt. Cmdr. Sarah Melick; Lt. Cmdr. Michael Kukenberger; and their civilian counterparts. They are the scientists with blended operational and academic expertise who ensure that innovation in the lab remains grounded in the real cognitive and performance demands of Naval Aviation. NAMI Behavioral Lab Manager Kaylin Strong supports the complex day-to-day execution of multi-sensor VR studies, such as coordinating participants, ensuring equipment readiness and maintaining the high data-quality standards needed for ASANA’s technical demands. The project also benefited from a strong partnership with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where Dr. Coyne provided scientific guidance for the application of the data and helped align ASANA with broader Navy priorities in cognitive engineering and operational performance modeling. Together, this officer–civilian, NAMI–NRL ecosystem created the environment where Bayro could contribute at a remarkably high level.
“Allison’s work this summer reflects exactly what makes this department special: talented researchers, cutting-edge tools, and a shared commitment to advancing Naval Aviation,” said Kukenberger, department head of Operational Psychology. “Our team of AEP officers, civilian scientists, and NRL partners built the environment, but ASANA exists because of Allison’s hard work, creativity, and insightful research. I’m very excited to see where her leadership takes the next phases of this larger research stream.”
So why does this matter? Because early results show the platform works. The data reveals a clear link between how a pilot performs in the virtual world and how their actual cognitive abilities will likely reflect and translate in the real. The program’s application means moving beyond a simple test score into truly understanding how an aviator builds awareness in the cockpit. Finding the physiological signatures of stress or focus, one day could inform everything from pilot selection to how we design the cockpits of the future.
“This work helps move the Navy toward faster, more reliable cognitive state detection,” said Bayro. “It reveals how spatial ability and situation awareness interact in operationally relevant tasks.”
The project continues, and Bayro has helped expand the dataset to nearly 100 participants to date. The ultimate intention is that the method of data collected could expand to more than just the aviation community. For every aviator in the sky, there’s a team on the ground or ship making the aviation mission possible. Pilots need the right air traffic controller that can juggle dozens of moving pieces without breaking a sweat. Aircraft need maintainers and electricians with great spatial reasoning, form interpretation and the ability to work under pressure. The military at large has other enlisted and commissioned service members who have equally specialized jobs requiring large investments to man, train, and equip which can benefit from this important work. ASANA, or future systems like it could help shape selection for jobs requiring high levels of proficiency and performance in demanding environments. Mismatching jobs with abilities is expensive; not just in training dollars, but in operational readiness. So the mission has expanded to find the best people and make sure they land in the right job. Inside this quiet lab, the work of building a better and more capable Navy goes on and continues to honor an 80-year tradition of pairing rigorous science with the unforgiving realities of the Fleet.
“I’m super grateful to be part of such meaningful work,” said Bayro. “You really feel the connection between what happens in the lab and what happens in the Fleet.”
ASANA is more than a project. It’s a testament to the idea that to build the future of aviation and beyond, first understanding the “ghost in the machine”, the human operator, is key..
For more information about NMOTC, the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, or Aerospace Experimental Psychologist visit https://www.med.navy.mil/Navy-Medicine-Operational-Training-Command/ For news about NMOTC follow us on DVIDS http://www.dvidshub.net/unit/NMOTC
| Date Taken: | 12.31.1969 |
| Date Posted: | 12.29.2025 21:40 |
| Story ID: | 555354 |
| Location: | PENSACOLA, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 44 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Honing the “Ghost in the Machine”; How Navy psychologists are building the future of aviation with ASANA, by PO1 Russell Lindsey, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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