Justin Maximilian Mittelstädt

German Aerospace Center (DLR) | DLR · Department of Aviation and Space Psychology

Introduction In 2022, the European Space Agency (ESA) held the first astronaut selection since the beginning of space flight that allowed physically impaired astronaut candidates to be selected in an inclusive European astronaut corp. The main objective of the ‘parastronaut feasibility project’ is to investigate if physical performance tests (PPTs)...

Introduction Despite significant challenges, personnel selection procedures had to continue as on-site testing in the Covid-19 pandemic. Health and safety measures and specifically the use of face masks threaten to limit the fairness of cognitive testing and behavioral observation in the assessment center. Methods In this study, we compare the per...

When subjects are repeatedly tested in cognitive assessments, systematic score gains occur. Such retest effects become even greater when test preparation is provided between assessments. In the context of personnel selection, retest gains are often increased by commercial test training, which threatens the fairness of psychological testing because...

The objective of the study is to show that trait anxiety and motion sickness history are responsible for different temporal progressions of sickness in passengers. The level of inflight anxiety and inflight sickness severity was monitored for 124 passengers in a full-motion cabin simulator during a short-haul flight with four different flight segme...

Background: Individuals seem to be differently susceptible to motion-related sickness (motion sickness, visually induced sickness etc.). Investigations of the reasons for these different susceptibilities have revealed many potential factors that could predict individual susceptibility to motion-related sickness. Objective: This paper attempts to...

Hi-tech cabin windows offer exciting opportunities for future aviation industry for cost and design reasons. However, little is known about how displays replacing real windows in an airplane influence passenger comfort. Research here mainly focusses on pilots in flight simulators or not flight-related laboratory virtual environments but not on pass...

The purpose of the study was the investigation of VR-induced aftereffects on various basic cognitive abilities and its relationship with cybersickness. Previous studies suggest an adverse effect of VR exposure on simple reaction times. Aftereffects on other basic cognitive abilities have rarely been studied. Sixty participants performed a test batt...

Objective: The goal was to investigate the influence of the tendency to catastrophize somatic symptoms and body awareness on motion-related sickness. Background: Influences of emotional and cognitive-evaluative processes on the genesis of motion sickness or cybersickness have rarely been investigated. Brain imaging studies showed activation duri...

Cybersickness is an ongoing issue in VR usage. Effects of display types and different means of a virtual avatar's navigation control on the degree of sickness are disputed or sparsely investigated. In the present study, participants were instructed to ride a virtual bike across a virtual island. Participants used either a head-mounted display (HMD)...

Virtual reality (VR) gains popularity in the entertainment industry and various professional contexts, such as healthcare, rehabilitation and aviation. Due to the vast technological advances in the last decades, the opportunities to develop applications allowing to experience and interact with immersive virtual environments have increased substanti...

A call for a female German space flight participant to accompany a space flight crew for about ten days while conducting research activities was launched in 2016. The core goal was to encourage women for so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) jobs. The German Aerospace Center DLR was responsible for the psychological and...

INTRODUCTION: This paper investigates personality traits as potential factors for success in an astronaut selection by comparing personality profiles of unsuccessful and successful astronaut candidates in different phases of the ESA selection procedure. It is further addressed whether personality traits could predict an overall assessment rating at...

The Temperament Structure Scales (TSS) are used in the selection of pilots, air traffic controllers, and astronauts at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). As there is evidence for the predictive validity of the TSS, its relationship with the popular Big Five factors as indicators of construct validity is investigated. Two samples comprising either E...

When people focus attention or carry out a demanding task, their breathing changes. But which parameters of respiration vary exactly and can respiration reliably be used as an index of cognitive load? These questions are addressed in the present systematic review of empirical studies investigating respiratory behavior in response to cognitive load....