Abstract
Many tasks in both military and industrial settings require monitoring a display or an environment for the appearance of a target stimulus. The capacity to remain vigilant decreases with time on task and, consequently, there has been research devoted to developing methods to improve sustained attention. The goal for this study was to investigate the effects of a perceived choice for task difficulty on the performance, perceived workload, and stress of individuals as well as replicate past vigilance findings related to time on task and event rate using a first-person perspective movement-based vigilance task. The hypotheses were partially supported. There was a marginal reduction in both false alarm frequency and frustration depending on perceived choice condition and a choice by task difficulty interaction for physical demand. The results for time on task and event rate effects were consistent with previous research.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.