Could the "startle factor" be a precurser for a possible panic situation? Maybe I should rename panic "The Extended Startle".
Any suggestions?
Trish thanks for the explanation. Now I believe that you are on to something that will be most valuable.
I like your definition of the
Extended startle Factor
I have done some work in this regards and spent many hours working with live CVR's that ended with a "click"
Some of the startle factors start with noises while others start with control perceptions (WTF was that? or unh oh?)
Sometimes the problem is when the other crew members stay silent or blurt out the wrong call resulting in a rapidly deteriorated situation and no time to back out of the wrong call.
Silence sometimes is your friend as it gives the questioning pilot time to focus on his own question before acting. Although in some cases requiring decisions in 1-3 seconds the questioning pilot acts anyway with an increased error rate.
If you want we could take some of this off-line with my (limited) examples after you put together a data gathering plan..