Minicomputer Administered tasks in the Study of Effects of Sustained Work on Human Performance.
Abstract
The measurements of changes in human performance during laboratory studies of long-term (sustained) continuous work periods has been greatly facilitated with the introduction of computer administered and scored tasks. This report documents six minicomputer administered tasks and their scoring programs which have been successfully used in the Sustained Operations research program at the Naval Health Research Center. The minicomputer system used in these studies was a MINC-11 (Modular Instrumentation Computer from Digital Equipment Corporation) configured with A/D converter clock modules, two terminals and a printer. The tasks were selecyted for measurement sensitivity to sleep loss and fatigue. Four of these tasks involved measures of different types of reaction times. The TRAP tasks measured the response times of alternate pressing of two buttons; the Simple Reaction Time task recorded response times to a visual stimulus; the Alpha-Numeric Visual Vigilance task measured response latencies to correct and incorrect (disjunctive) visual signal detections, and the Four Choice Serial Reaction Time task measured reaction time involving correctnedd of choice to a visual stimulus in one of four areas on a terminal screen. Two other tasks prevented via computer were the Logical Reasoning Task, measuring correctness of complex information processing, and a Mood-Symptom-Fatigue and physiological state survey. The task programs were written in assembly language (MACRO-11), and the scoring-listing programs in Fortran IV. The programs have been run on MINC-11/03 and 11/23 computers, with two double-density disk drives.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1983
- Accession Number
- ADA133870
Entities
People
- Carl E. Englund
- David H. Ryman
- Paul Naitoh
Organizations
- Naval Health Research Center