Alf
I have just read the NASA report.
Couple of points.
1. You can call it weak stick and rudder or cognition or whatever you want. The report makes clear that automation damages pilot skills.
2. The report, which I agree with by the way, is hardly scientific either. It uses a self selecting group of only 16 pilots and makes many "gross assumptions" For example:
"It is important to note that this recommendation assumes that pilots attain an initial level of mastery with these skills (Farr, 1987"
3. Interesting quote that agrees strongly with my points earlier:
"This proposal suggests the need for a further study of the effect of active monitoring on procedural skill retention and, perhaps more importantly, if improvements in the human monitoring of automated systems are even possible. There is accumulating evidence of the difficulty in maintaining one’s thoughts focused on the activities of an automated system that seldom fails (Casner & Schooler, 2014)"