Complementary approaches to assess the crewmembers' behavioral profiles during Mars-500 experiment

Abstract

The Mars-500 facilities provided the unique opportunity to emphasize these behavioral issues and to assess them in complementary approaches: ethological observations using video recordings and a Wireless Group Structure (WLGS) tool using radio satellites. The observational tool is a quantitative description of actions and interactions, e.g. visual interactions, object interactions and body interactions between the subjects (duration of occurrence). The WLGS tool measures the time spent together for two subjects (crew cohesion time). The common features are objective assessments. The protocols of data collection on each subject (n=6) were coordinated on the Mars-500 experiment timeline, once per two weeks, on Tuesday. The video recording was made during a collective activity, at breakfast time. The WLGS monitoring was made over 18 day hours. The ethological results showed different behavioral profiles per subject and according to the mission day with an emphasis on longer visual interactions than object and body interactions, and low or high durations of collective activity. Correlations with the crew cohesion time complement the findings, underlie the individual differences and reinforce the social relationships changes observed over the mission.