Psychologists who studied the downing of an Iranian civilian airliner in the Persian Gulf say the military needs to better understand stress and should spend more on psychological research and improve its crew training. The judgment of the Navy cruiser crew that mistakenly shot down the Iranian plane July 3 was clouded by misconceptions caused by stress, the psychologists said. ``There is much knowledge about how decisions go wrong and how they can be improved that is not being put to use in military decision-making,'' Dr. Paul Slovic, a psychology professor from the University of Oregon, told a House panel Thursday. Dr. Steven Zornetzer, representing the Navy's office of naval research, responded that the service does try to consider stress and is spending $12 million a year on basic research into psychological questions. Another $18 million is being spent to apply the results of that research to Navy programs. While progess is being made, he said, ``it must be clearly recognized that these research problems are among the most difficult and complex in the entire research spectrum.'' The hearing by the House Armed Services policy subcommittee was part of the panel's examination of the destruction of Iran Air Flight 655 that killed all 290 people on board. It was shot down by the cruiser Vincennes in the mistaken belief that the commercial jetliner was a military plane diving toward the Vincennes. A Navy investigation attributed the incident to stress-related mistakes made by the crew of the Aegis-class cruiser, one of the Navy's most sophisticated warships. The Navy said crew members, under battle-caused stress after just finishing a firefight with Iranian gunboats, misread or misinterpreted a variety of electronic data from the Aegis computers. Rep. Les Aspin, D-Wis., chairman of the panel, said, ``Misinterpretations of data provided by the Aegis weapon system and chaotic communications in the command center have pointed up troubles with man's ability to make fast, accurate decisions in combat.'' Dr. Richard Nisbett, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, noted that the Vincennes crew was on alert for an attack by Iranian planes. The crew members interpreted the data to see what they expected to see, he said. ``Expectations can color what people think they see, and what they remember, to a far greater degree than is recognized by common sense,'' Nisbett said. ``Magicians and card sharks have long made a living on this principle, and in the last 30 years or so psychologists have learned a great deal about the scope of the principle in daily life events,'' he said. Nisbett also noted the example of the USS Stark, which was hit by an Iraqi missile in May 1987, killing 37 seamen. Top officers on the Stark were disciplined for not firing their weapons against the Iraqi plane, and Navy ships in the region were on a high state of alert after that. The Vincennes crew wanted to avoid another incident like that involving the Stark, Nisbett said. Dr. Richard Helmreich, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, said the Vincennes crew members didn't communicate among themselves well enough. ``The communications problems evident in the Vincennes incident closely parallel those uncovered in analyses of the causes of crashes in civilian and military air transport,'' he said. Dr. Richard W. Pew said another risk arises from the highly automated, computerized nature of modern warships like the Vincennes. ``Research is badly needed to understand when and just how much automation to introduce in situations where the ultimate control and responsibility must rest with the human operators,'' he said.
The House Armed Services Policy Subcommittee heard testimony relating to the destruction of an Iranian commercial airliner by missiles fired from the USS Vincennes. The Navy had earlier said that mistakes had been made aboard the Vincennes in reading and interpreting data. In a statement released on Monday, the Pentagon said: "The United States is not seeking regime change or military action against Iran. One professor added that when military people are at a high stage of alert, as were the crew of the Vincennes, they are apt to interpret data to fit what they expect to happen.