ATTENTION LEVEL AND VISUAL AND AUDITORY MONITORING PERFORMANCE
Abstract
The relationship between performance on a monitoring (vigilance) task and level of alertness as measured by performance on a tracking tank was investigated. Each of 20 male college subjects was tested under each of ten experimental conditions. The experimental conditions consisted of various combinations of: auditory or visual monitoring; low or high rate of signal input; auditory or visual tracking; and simple or complex tracking problems. The results indicate that for the visual vigilance conditions more signals were missed when the subject was simultaneously engaged in a tracking task; however, this was not true for the auditory vigilance conditions. On both the visual and auditory vigilance tasks the decrement in performance during the 45 minute test period was less when a tracking task was performed simultaneously. Furthermore, the better the subject tracked, or the more frequent the vigilance signals, the greater the likelihood of a signal being detected. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1962
- Accession Number
- AD0291951
Entities
People
- Louis T. Pope
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory