Combined Tracking and Monitoring Performance over Seven Hours under Noise

Abstract

Twenty volunteer, paid, males performed a task requiring (a) pursuit tracking of a CRT display target using a joystick control, plus (b) concurrent monitoring of a warning light and two panel meters located peripherally to the central task. During the task which lasted seven hours 10 subjects were exposed to rapid, intermittent pulses of broadband noise of 91 dB(A) peak intensity; the other 10 subjects performed in “quiet”. Recordings of eye movements were made to determine attention to the time-shared, peripheral tasks. No significant differences in performance were found (a) for the noise variable or (b) between “high” and “low” annoyance sensitive subjects as categorized by scores on a Noise Annoyance Sensitivity Scale. While tracking performance declined over time, meter monitoring performance did not, nor was there evidence that eye movements to the peripheral events decreased over time. The results fail to support the view that narrowing of attention occurs in perceptual-motor tasks involving time-sharing of attention to central and peripheral events when such a task is performed over a prolonged period of time.