http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/18738592

An Evaluation of the Effects of High Visual Taskload on the Separate Behaviors Involved in Complex Monitoring Performance

Operational monitoring situations, in contrast to typical laboratory vigilance tasks, generally involve more than just stimulus detection and recognition. They frequently involve complex multidimensional discriminations, interpretations of significance, decisions as to appropriate action, implementation of action, and evaluation of consequences. A simulated air traffic control (ATC) task was developed to study the effects of prolonged monitoring on a number of such behaviors embedded in the context of the task. All subjects performed the task under relatively high visual taskload conditions for a single 120-min session. The results revealed that time to detect aircraft at the same altitude increased significantly over the monitoring period as did omission errors for this type of event. Detection time for the more readily detectable alphanumeric changes involving loss of altitude information showed no evidence of impairment, nor was any impairment found for any of the other task behaviors that were measured. The findings are discussed with reference to previous studies suggesting that complex monitoring primarily affects attentional processes and that the rate of decline in attention appears to be related to the degree of information processing required for event detection. Keywords: Air traffic control, Attention, Automation, Monitoring, Performance, Vigilance, Short term memory, Target tracking, Laboratory tests, Fatigue.

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