FACILITATION OF SIGNAL DETECTION BY THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL SIGNALS AND BY THE USE OF LONGER VIEWING TIME

Abstract

The effectiveness of the observing response technique in improving signal detection efficiency was demonstrated in two experiments. In the first experiment, the percentage of detections proved greater than Mackworth had found earlier with continuous viewing, and even greater than Holland had found in his study. Fourteen subjects in this experiment showed no decline in observing rate as their signal detections decreased. Increasing the rate of signal presentation by the addition of frequent, distinguishable, artificial signals during the final hour of the session eliminated the temporal decrement shown by 13 subjects in the first hour of the experiment; their response rate increased throughout most of a two-hour session. In the second experiment, the use of an illumination period of 1.0 second reduced the frequency of observing response and apparently prevented any decrement in signal detection in the second half-hour as was seen in the first experiment where the observation period was limited to 0.07 seconds. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 1961
Accession Number
AD0273574

Entities

People

  • Richard A. Regan

Organizations

  • University of Pittsburgh

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Detection
  • Efficiency
  • Frequency
  • Illumination
  • Observation
  • Signal Detection

Readers

  • Brain and Cognitive Science; Experimental Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Mathematics or Statistics
  • Radar Systems Engineering.