The extreme environment of high altitude gas ballooning: Lessons learned in assessing cognition

Extreme environments often profoundly impact one's cognition and subsequently the ability to make accurate and correct decisions. Although we are beginning to understand how these environments impact individual and team cognition, more specific work conducted in real extreme environments is needed to further understand this relationship. In this paper, we present data collected in the extreme environment of gas ballooning. Recently, the Two Eagles gas ballooning project set two absolute world records: longest duration in a gas balloon and longest distance in a gas balloon. During this project, our research team was able to collect cognitive abilities data and data on the effects of multiple stressors in the environment. We present the overall project along with some insights from the data. We also highlight lessons learned from attempting to collect data in an extreme environment.