NTL Record

Title An Evaluation of the Effects of High Visual Taskload on the Seperate Behaviors Involved in Complex Monitoring Performance
Record ID 39514
Personal Name
Creator
Thackray, Richard I.; Touchstone, R. Mark
Corporate Creator Civil Aeromedical Institute
Corporate
Contributor
United States. Office of Aviation Medicine
Publisher Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
Publication Date 19880100
Language English
Abstract Operational monitoring situations, in contrast to typical laboratory vigilance tasks, generally involve more than just stimulus detection and recognition. They frequently involve complex multidimensional discriminations, interpretations of significance, decisions as to appropriate action, implementation of action, and evaluation of consequences. A simulated air traffic control (ATC) task was developed to study the effects of prolonged monitoring on a number of such behaviors embedded in the context of the task. All subjects performed the task under relatively high visual taskload conditions for a single 120-min session. The results revealed that time to detect aircraft at the same altitude increased significantly over the monitoring period as did omission errors for this type of event. Detection time for the more readily detectable alphanumeric changes involving loss of altitude information showed no evidence of impairment, nor was any impairment found for any of the other task behaviors that were measured. The findings are discussed with reference to previous studies suggesting that complex monitoring primarily affects attentional processes and that the rate of decline in attention appears to be related to the degree of information processing required for event detection.
Rosap ID dot:21295
Rosap URL https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/21295
TRT Terms Air traffic control; Monitoring; Automation; Attention; Vigilance; Physiological fatigue; Visual perception; Eye movements; Vision; Behavior; Errors; Memory; Performance tests; Human subject testing
General Subjects Air traffic control--Automation; Attention¿Testing; Vigilance (Psychology); Fatigue; Eye--Movements; Human behavior; Errors; Memory; Performance--Testing
Classification NTL - AVIATION - Air Traffic Control;
NTL - AVIATION - Aviation Human Factors
Geographical
Coverage
United States
Report Number DOT/FAA/AM-88/1
Resource type Tech Report
URL https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/39000/39500/39514/AM88-01.pdf
Format PDF
Database NTL Digital Repository