The analyst can model environmental factors or what behavioral scientists refer to as performance shaping factors. These include environmental variables such as temperature, humidity, time of day, etc. Operator Characteristics . Operator Traits and States are simulated. Traits are variables such as mental ability, susceptibility to motion sickness, time since trained, etc.
States are variables such as fatigue, hunger, etc.
The Operator State is dynamically updated during a simulation. Therefore, each operator in the simulation can have unique characteristics. Performance Shaping Functions . These PSFs are linked to individual tasks through a task taxonomy allowing one PSF function to be dynamically applied to any similar task in a model. A new algorithm for estimating operator workload developed by the British Centre for Human Sciences has been built into IPME and can be used to evaluate when operator task demands exceed capacity.