Cognitive Pathways to Aviation Safety: A Systematic Literature Review of Decision-Making, Situation Awareness, Workload, and Fatigue

Abstract

Cognitive determinants are central to aviation safety because they shape how operators perceive information, allocate attention, manage workload, maintain situation awareness, and make decisions under dynamic conditions. This systematic literature review synthesized evidence using a PRISMA-oriented screening and full-text eligibility process. From 5,421 Scopus records, 394 entered title–abstract–keyword screening, and 120 studies were included in the final qualitative synthesis. The evidence was classified into four primary domains: decision-making, risk perception, and cognitive control (n = 29); situation awareness, attention allocation, and visual monitoring (n = 36); mental workload, task complexity, and psychophysiological monitoring (n = 24); and fatigue, sleepiness, stress, and cognitive resilience (n = 31). Findings show that these domains interact dynamically: fatigue and stress reduce cognitive resources, workload constrains attention, degraded attention weakens situation awareness, and impaired situation awareness compromises decision-making and safety performance. The review proposes an integrated cognitive safety perspective linking cognitive state, attentional capacity, situation awareness, decision-making, and safety performance within a socio-technical framework.