In an attempt to specify the limiting conditions of the taxonomy of vigilance tasks, four tasks differing in memory load and in stimuli employed (sensory or cognitive) were compared. Electrodermal activity and subjective measures were used to determine the investment of effort. The data show that vigilance level and vigilance decrement dissociate. The level seems to relate to effort demand and investment; the decrement seems to be task driven, determined mainly by the type of stimuli used. Tasks employing unfamiliar stimuli showed a decline in sensitivity; “cognitive” tasks employing alphanumeric stimuli did not. Principal components analyses suggest that measures of speed and accuracy may reflect relatively independent systems. Subjective data showed that good performers expend more effort in difficult and complex tasks. Effortful processing seems to prevent rather than induce a decline in efficiency.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bagnara, S., Rizzo, A., Visciola, M., and Salmaso, D. (1985). Differential automatization processes as a function of the type of stimuli. In I. D. Brown, R. Gold smith, K. Coombes, and M. A. Sinclair (Eds.), rgonomics international 85 (pp. 619–621). London: Taylor & Francis.
2.
Bakan, P., Belton, J. A., and Toth, J. C. (1963). Extraversion-introversion and decrement in an auditory vigilance task. In D. N. Buckner and J. J. McGrath (Eds.), Vigilance: A symposium (pp. 22–33). New York: McGraw-Hill.
3.
Barbee, J. G., and Black, I. L. (1984). Critical stimulus durations for some verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 59, 1001–1002.
4.
Damos, D. L. (1984). Individual differences in multipletask performance and subjective estimates of work-load. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 59, 567–580.
5.
Davies, D. R., and Parasuraman, R. (1982). The psychology of vigilance.London: Academic Press.
6.
Davies, D. R., and Tune, G. S. (1970). Human vigilance perfonnance.London: Staples Press.
7.
Dittmar, M. L., Warm, J. S., and Dember, W. N. (1985). Effects of knowledge of results on performance in successive and simultaneous vigilance tasks: A signal detection analysis. In R. E. Eberts and C. G. Eberts (Eds.), Trends in ergonomics/human factors 11 (pp. 195–202). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
8.
Eilers, K., Hänecke, K., Peper, J., and Nachreiner, F. (1988). Time of day effects in vigilance performance. In J. P. Leonard (Ed.), Vigilance: Methods, models and regulation (pp. 181–190). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
9.
Finn, J. D. (1977). MULTIVARIANCE. Univariate and multivariate analysis of variance, covariance, regression and repeated measures. Version VI. User's guide.Chicago: National Educational Resources.
10.
Finn, J. D., and Mattsson, I. (1978). Multivariate analysis in educational research. Applications of the MULTIVARIANCE program.Chicago: National Educational Resources.
11.
Fisk, A. D., and Schneider, W. (1981). Control and automatic processing during tasks requiring sustained attention: A new approach to vigilance. Human Factors, 23, 737–750.
12.
Gopher, D., and Braune, R. (1984). On the psychophysics of workload: Why bother with subjective measures?Human Factors, 26, 519–532.
13.
Greene, R. L., Kille, S. E., and Hogan, F. A. (1979). Electrodermal measures of attention and effort to stimulus onset and offset for intramodal and intermodal tasks. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 48, 411–418.
14.
Grier, J. B. (1971). Nonparametric indexes for sensitivity and bias: Computing formulas. Psychological Bulletin, 75, 424–429.
15.
Kahneman, D., Tursky, B., Shapiro, D., and Crider, A. (1969). Pupillary, heart rate, and skin resistance changes during a mental task. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 79, 164–167.
16.
Kemp, S. (1984). Reaction time to a tone in noise as a function of the signal-to-noise ratio and tone level. Perception and Psychophysics, 36, 473–476.
17.
Kennedy, R. S. (1977). The relationship between vigilance and eye movements induced by vestibular stimulation. In R. R. Mackie (Ed.), Vigilance: Theory, operational perfonnance, and physiological correlates (pp. 575–602). New York: Plenum Press.
18.
Kerr, B. (1973). Processing demands during mental operations. Memory and Cognition, 1, 401–412.
19.
Klonowicz, T. (1974). Reactivity and fitness for the occupation of operator. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 5, 129–136.
20.
Koelega, H. S., and Brinkman, J. A. (1986). Noise and vigilance: An evaluative review. Human Factors, 28, 465–481.
21.
Koelega, H. S., Brinkman, J. A., and Bergman, H. (1986). No effect of noise on vigilance performance?Human Factors, 28, 581–594.
22.
Krueger, L. E. (1984). The category effect in visual search depends on physical rather than conceptual differences. Perception and Psychophysics, 35, 558–564.
23.
Krupski, A., Raskin, D. C., and Bakan, P. (1971). Physiological and personality correlates of commission errors in an auditory vigilance task. Psychophysiology, 8, 304–311.
24.
Loeb, M., Noonan, T. K., Ash, D. W., and Holding, D. H. (1987). Limitations of the cognitive vigilance increment. Human Factors, 29, 661–674.
25.
Mackworth, J. F. (1970). Vigilance and attention. A signal detection approach.Harmondsworth, England: Penguin.
26.
Neal, G. L., and Pearson, R. G. (1966). Comparative effects of age, sex, and drugs upon two tasks of auditory vigilance. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 23, 967–974.
27.
O'Hanlon, J. F. (1981). Boredom: Practical consequences and a theory. Acta Psychologica, 49, 53–82.
28.
Parasuraman, R. (1979). Memory load and event rate control sensitivity decrements in sustained attention. Science, 205, 924–927.
29.
Parasuraman, R. (1984). Sustained attention in detection and discrimination. In R. Parasuraman and D. R. Davies (Eds.), Varieties of attention (pp. 243–271). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
30.
Parasuraman, R. (1985). Sustained attention: A multifactorial approach. In M. I. Posner and O. S. M. Marin (Eds.), Attention and performance XI (pp. 493–511). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
31.
Raskin, D. C. (1973). Attention and arousal. In W. F. Prokasy and D. C. Raskin (Eds.), Electrodermal activity in psychological research (pp. 125–155). New York: Academic Press.
32.
Rösler, F., Sutton, S., Johnson, R., Mulder, G., Fabiani, M., Plooy-van Gorsel, E., and Roth, W. T. (1986). Endogenous ERP components and cognitive constructs. A review. In W. C. McCallum, R. Zappoli, and F. Denoth (Eds.), Cerebral psychophysiology: Studies in event-related potentials (EEG Suppl. 38, pp. 51–92). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
33.
Ross, S., Dardano, J. and Hackman, R. C. (1959). Conductance levels during vigilance task performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 43, 65–69.
34.
Shaw, M. L. (1984). Division of attention among spatial locations: A fundamental difference between detection of letters and detection of luminance increments. In H. Bouma and D. G. Bouwhuis (Eds.), Attention and performance X (pp. 109–121). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
35.
Warm, J. S. (1984). An introduction to vigilance. In J. S. Warm (Ed.), Sustained attention in human performance (pp. 1–14). Chicester, England: Wiley.
36.
Warm, J. S., Dember, W. N., Lanzetta, T. M., Bowers, J. C., and Lysaght, R. J. (1985). Information processing in vigilance performance: Complexity revisited. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society (pp. 19–23). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
37.
Warm, J. S., Fishbein, H. D., Howe, S., and Kendell, L. (1976). Effects of event rate and the cognitive complexity of critical signals on sustained attention. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 8, 257.
38.
Warm, J. S., Howe, S. R., Fishbein, H. D., Dember, W. N., and Sprague, R. L. (1984). Cognitive demand and the vigilance decrement. In A. Mital (Ed.), Trends in ergonomics/human factors I (pp. 15–20). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
39.
Williges, R. C. (1971). The role of payoffs and signal ratios in criterion changes during a monitoring task. Human Factors, 13, 261–267.
40.
Yeh, Y.-Y., and Wickens, C. D. (1984). Why do performance and subjective workload measures dissociate? Proceedings of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society (pp. 504–508). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
