A Systems Task Used in the Stress Testing of Special Mission Personnel

Abstract

One aspect of a psychologic evaluation program for special mission personnel was structured within a concept of competing tasks, requiring two operator signal-display sources. One source produced an array of discrete, discontinuous signals. The other produced a continuous input for the operator to monitor and process. The evaluation was made with reference to the performance of an “ideal” subject. The results indicate that a criterion group of those finally selected for the special mission was better able to adapt to the two competing tasks and was less susceptible to the signal/noise ambiguity and the induced task stress than the special mission personnel group as a whole.