This manual provides guidance for human factors researchers and applied psychologists, on the standardized and scientifically rigorous use of the instruments. It is structured to include an overview of the instruments, administration guidelines, and a summary of their psychometric properties to support accurate application and interpretation in research and operational contexts.

Unexpected in-flight events can trigger startle and surprise, which could impair pilots’ performance but remain difficult to measure. This dissertation addresses this gap by developing and validating self-report instruments to quantify startle and surprise in an aviation context.
Grounded in cognitive models, real-world incident analyses, and robust psychometric methods, the Startle and Surprise Inventories (Startle-I; Surprise-I) and Visual Analogue Scales (Startle-VAS; Surprise-VAS) are introduced and evaluated. Results from multi-phase studies involving field experts and professional pilots, provide strong evidence of validity and reliability.
The findings offer a scientifically validated framework for assessing pilots’ responses to unexpected events, with broad implications for human factors research, evidence-based training, and safety-critical operations.

We investigated the effect of personality traits and flight experience on pilot cognitive and affective responses across seven startling and surprising scenarios performed in motion-based simulators. A dataset of 89 airline pilots from four studies was used. The personality traits measured were trait anxiety, decision-related action orientation (AOD), and failure-related action orientation (AOF). Pilot self-reported responses in scenarios were standardized by obtaining z scores of startle, surprise, stress, and mental workload. Only trait anxiety was found to be significantly positively correlated with stress. No significant effects of AOD, AOF, or flight hours were found on pilots’ responses. The results indicate trait anxiety may affect pilots’ responses to stressful scenarios, even though pilots are selected based on low trait anxiety.

This paper outlines the three-phase construction of the Startle and Surprise Inventories (Startle-I; Surprise-I) and Visual Analogue Scales for Startle and Surprise (Startle-VAS; Surprise-VAS). In Phase 1, seven experts in the field assessed the content validity of 14 items for surprise, 7 items for startle derived from fundamental and applied literature. Elimination of items was based on a 50% agreement of relevance. In Phase 2, 81 participants completed the retained 19 items nine times, each time immediately after watching a video clip. A multilevel exploratory factor analysis was applied to assess the construct validity of items. In Phase 3, concurrent validity of the Startle-VAS and Surprise-VAS was tested by comparing with the Startle-I and Surprise-I scores, respectively. The first two phases yielded a 11-item two-factor solution, corresponding to the constructs of startle and surprise. These results supported Startle-I and Surprise-I as measures of self-report startle and surprise, with Startle-VAS and Surprise-VAS as efficient alternatives.