By Amelia Gagnon, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
The goal of this experiment is to gather fNIRS and physiological instrumentation observations of a participant performing a task while on the ZeroG plane and statistically compare the observations to those of the same participant performing the same task but in Earth gravity. To elicit increased mental workload, participants will perform a memory task on an iPad app. In this task, called an n-back test, participants are asked to hold several items for memory and think back to an earlier item. While these items can be letters, numbers, colors, or sounds, the app designed for this experiment is entirely visually-based to account for the noisy environment of the aircraft cabin. Over the course of the parabola, the participant is shown different shape colors and locations at a constant rate. When prompted, the participants must recall an earlier color or location of the shape.