The Effects of Task-Switching within a Single Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) Role
Abstract
The Army's Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) concept will require that fewer Soldiers operate and manage a greater number of technologies and autonomous agents than in legacy armor platforms. This reduction in crew-to-asset ratio necessitates the ability for crewmembers to switch between various tasks in a rapid, efficient manner to meet the needs of the future operating environment. This work evaluates how task-switching affects performance in an NGCV-relevant paradigm, a high-fidelity simulation of gunning and target classification tasks. The timing of advanced preparation, which provided an alert of each pending task-switch, was examined as an intervention to mitigate the potential negative effects of task-switching, subject to variations in workload of both tasks. Results showed a task-switching cost in performance in the classification task, but the reverse was found for the gunning task, where performance was better after a task-switch. A manipulation check showed that the workload manipulation was successful, but contrary to the hypothesis, performance was better when workload was high for both the gunning (reaction time) and classification (accuracy) tasks. Finally, there were no effects of different levels of advanced preparation on performance following a task-switch in either task.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1167414
Entities
People
- Daniel E Forster
- Gregory M. Gremillion
- Isadora M. Fink
- Katherine R. Cox
- Thomas L. Rohaly
Organizations
- United States Army Research Laboratory