Abstract
An experiment was performed to assess the effects of visual display mode and 6 hr of monitoring on performance in a complex vigilance task. The task had 12 stimulus sources arrayed over 60 degrees, and alphanumeric signals that persisted for 6 sec. Each group of 15 subjects had a different display configuration: normally off, normally on, and normally on with noise. Display mode influenced overall mean performance, but not vigilance decrement. The amount of vigilance decrement was small despite the long session, and its magnitude was essentially the same as previous studies whose sessions were two-three hours duration. Earlier conclusions about the triviality of vigilance decrement when tasks are complex were supported.
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