Attention and automation: New perspectives on mental underload and performance

There is considerable evidence in the ergonomics literature that automation can significantly reduce operator mental workload. Furthermore, reducing mental workload is not necessarily a good thing, particularly in cases where the level is already manageable. This raises the issue of mental underload, which can be at least as detrimental to performance as overload. However, although it is widely recognized that mental underload is detrimental to performance, there are very few attempts to explain why this may be the case. It is argued in this paper that, until the need for a human operator is completely eliminated, automation has psychological implications relevant in both theoretical and applied domains. The present paper reviews theories of attention, as well as the literature on mental workload and automation, to synthesize a new explanation for the effects of mental underload on performance. Malleable attentional resources theory proposes that attentional capacity shrinks to accommodate reductions in mental workload, and that this shrinkage is responsible for the underload effect. The theory is discussed with respect to the applied implications for ergonomics research

The Influence of Stereotype on Maintenance and Retrieval Errors: Does Working Memory Capacity Matter?

I explored the influence of stereotypes on performance in cognitive tasks as a function of individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) in a multi-part study. First, I established that low and high WMC persons maintain equivalent knowledge of common racial stereotypes. Next, I tested whether stereotype-based responses in cognitive tasks that require controlled processing are influenced by individual differences in WMC. Given that stereotypical associations are automatic and cognitively efficient, I predicted that without sufficient resources to suppress these associations, persons with low relative to high WMC will be more susceptible to the influence of stereotype-consistent errors on tasks which have been demonstrated to induce performance differences in low and high WMC persons (Unsworth & Engle, 2007). Engaging WMC is not required in all cognitive tasks; thus, low and high WMC persons were not expected to perform differently on tasks that rely on more automatic processes. Results provided general support for predictions as persons with more inherently limited cognitive resources committed a higher number of stereotype-consistent errors when performing a maintenance task and accurately recalled fewer stereotype-consistent words when performing a retrieval task. However, persons completing inhibition and familiarity tasks, which are methodologically similar to the maintenance and retrieval tasks but involve less controlled cognitive processes, performed similarly regardless of WMC

Aspects of the Assessment and Intervention with Memory and Executive Functions in People with Neurological Conditions

This thesis examined two contemporary conundrums relevant to the practice of neuropsychology. Through systematic review and meta-analysis, the first project examined the treatment effects of errorless learning (EL) a compensatory technique designed to facilitate learning for people with memory impairment resulting from neurological conditions. This review of EL in the field of memory rehabilitation is timely. To date, there is only one meta-analysis of the treatment effects of EL, completed nearly twenty years ago which did not control for potential biases. Subsequently there has been a natural progression in the use of EL from well-controlled laboratory-based tasks to its integration into memory rehabilitation programmes. In addition to examining the overall effect of EL in people with amnesic disorders, this review was also the first to report the treatments effects from studies of patients with progressive conditions separately from studies of non-progressive neurological conditions. Results indicate that EL is an effective technique to help people with memory disorders learn new information. This informs clinicians of the appropriateness of its use in practice. However, potential publication bias was identified, along with variation in methodology and quality of the studies reviewed and analysed. Until steps are taken to produce studies which are suffice in size, well controlled and the publication of non-significant results are encouraged, caution must be applied to avoid over-estimating the clinical benefits of EL to patients. The second element of this project aimed to investigate issues around long-reported concerns of a lack of correspondence between test performance on neuropsychological measures and everyday decision-making ability in patients with acquired brain injury (ABI). Reduced decision-making capacity is a common consequence of ABI. The results can have devastating consequences for an individual and the support systems around them. Accurate assessment of a person’s decision-making ability is crucial to inform support needs. This project examined this issue with a service evaluation in a specialist cognitive rehabilitation service. The evaluation explored the relationships between standardised tests of cognitive function and a custom clinician-rated measure of everyday decision-making. Results provide evidence towards the accuracy of the tests used in the service to assess the cognitive components of decision-making. The results also evidence how elements of the assessment battery employed by the service meet existing clinical standards. This evaluation suggests that at a group level, despite concerns in the literature around a lack of ecological validity, tests of executive function are more useful in the assessment of decision-making than those from broader cognitive domains. In addition, the results identify a specific measure of planning to be important in the assessment of decision-making. This work informs clinicians in the service on how to approach the cognitive assessment of decision-making and evidence some potential for modifications in their battery. These results could lead to increased accuracy of assessment, with increased potential for patient challenges in this domain to be identified. This review may also provide a framework for other services on how to approach evidencing their standard of cognitive assessment of decision-making, despite the lack of specific national guidelines

Acknowledgement Response and Interference Timing During the Processing of Voice and Datalink ATC Commands

In aviation, effective communication between air traffic control (ATC) and pilots is critical to pilot performance and safety. Problems and limitations of current radio communications initiated the development of datalink technology. Datalink is a text system used to send messages between ATC and pilots. Although datalink was intended to reduce errors associated with radio communication, there are new concerns related to changes in information processing demands associated with executing speech and text ATC commands. In addition, the nature of responses differs between voice and datalink systems. In a voice environment, responses are immediate. However, time delays exist with datalink. These time delays may create an opportunity for interference. Therefore, the timing of interference and the acknowledgement response on command execution performance were examined during the processing of simulated ATC commands. Verbal and central executive (CE) interference tasks were presented before or after the acknowledgement. Participants received both speech and text commands, responded by a verbal or manual acknowledgement, and set the controls in a flight simulator. Results demonstrated no differences between speech and text formats with a verbal acknowledgement. However, there was an advantage for a manual acknowledgement with longer messages. Regarding interference timing, CE as opposed to verbal interference prior to an acknowledgement had a greater negative effect on control setting performance and the magnitude of this effect was larger in the text condition. Thus, text information appears to be more susceptible to the negative effects of interference as resources begin to reach capacity. However, the differences between the sources of interference decreased with an increase in message length. Therefore, the timing and type of interference can have differential effects on resource capacity and the ability to rehearse information in memory. It was also suggested that the processing code of a task is of more importance than the response code. The findings are interpreted within the context of a working memory and resource perspective and implications are discussed with regard to the communication process in aviation

Preference for Safe Over Risky Options in Binge Eating.

Binge eating has been usually viewed as a loss of control and an impulsive behavior. But, little is known about the actual behavior of binging patients (prevalently women) in terms of basic decision-making under risk or under uncertainty. In healthy women, stressful cues bias behavior for safer options, raising the question of whether food cues that are perceived as threatening by binging patients may modulate patients' behaviors towards safer options. A cross-sectional study was conducted with binging patients (20 bulimia nervosa (BN) and 23 anorexia nervosa binging (ANB) patients) and two control groups (22 non-binging restrictive (ANR) anorexia nervosa patients and 20 healthy participants), without any concomitant impulsive disorder. We assessed decisions under risk with a gambling task with known probabilities and decisions under uncertainty with the balloon analog risk taking task (BART) with unknown probabilities of winning, in three cued-conditions including neutral, binge food and stressful cues. In the gambling task, binging and ANR patients adopted similar safer attitudes and coherently elicited a higher aversion to losses when primed by food as compared to neutral cues. This held true for BN and ANR patients in the BART. After controlling for anxiety level, these safer attitudes in the food condition were similar to the ones under stress. In the BART, ANB patients exhibited a higher variability in their choices in the food compared to neutral condition. This higher variability was associated with higher difficulties to discard irrelevant information. All these results suggest that decision-making under risk and under uncertainty is not fundamentally altered in all these patients

The Effect of Loneliness on Executive Functioning in Young and Older Adults

Loneliness has many risk factors (including being single, a woman, or socially isolated) as well as potentially negative effects on physical, psychological and cognitive health. Baumeister, Twenge, and Nuss (2002) suggested loneliness affects "self regulation" of effort; their notion of `self-regulation' appears to be similar to "executive function." This dissertation investigated the effect of temporarily induced loneliness on young and older adults' executive functioning, a critical ability for maintaining independence of older adults. The experimental design was a near replication of the Baumeister, Twenge, and Nuss (2002) experiment which primed loneliness in young adults by providing false feedback indicating a future of being alone. This dissertation extended their approach to older adults and examined whether loneliness priming impairs cognitive and executive functions, as measured by reading comprehension, the Stroop test, and the Trail Making task. Unexpectedly, over 40% of the participants were classified as lonely based on the de Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale with similar patterns of loneliness across both age groups. Non-lonely participants, regardless of age, who were presented with the future alone prime manipulation did not show the hypothesized effects of reduced cognitive function, on reading comprehension or executive function, failing to replicate the findings of Baumeister, et al. These findings are discussed in respect to their implications for theories of loneliness and executive function

The development of reasoning heuristics in autism and in typical development

Reasoning and judgment under uncertainty are often based on a limited number of simplifying heuristics rather than formal logic or rule-based argumentation. Heuristics are low-effort mental shortcuts, which save time and effort, and usually result in accurate judgment, but they can also lead to systematic errors and biases when applied inappropriately. In the past 40 years hundreds of papers have been published on the topic of heuristics and biases in judgment and decision making. However, we still know surprisingly little about the development and the cognitive underpinnings of heuristics and biases. The main aim of my thesis is to examine these questions. Another aim is to evaluate the applicability of dual-process theories of reasoning to the development of reasoning. Dual-process theories claim that there are two types of process underlying higher order reasoning: fast, automatic, and effortless (Type 1) processes (which are usually associated with the use of reasoning heuristics), and slow, conscious and effortful (Type 2) processes (which are usually associated with rule-based reasoning). This thesis presents eight experiments which investigated the development of reasoning heuristics in three different populations: typically developing children and adolescents between the age of 5 and 16, adolescents with autism, and university students. Although heuristic reasoning is supposed to be basic, simple, and effortless, we have found evidence that responses that are usually attributed to heuristic processes are positively correlated with cognitive capacity in the case of young children (even after controlling for the effects of age). Moreover, we have found that adolescents with autism are less susceptible to a number of reasoning heuristics than typically developing children. Finally, our experiments with university students provided evidence that education in statistics increases the likelihood of the inappropriate use of a certain heuristic (the equiprobability bias). These results offer a novel insight into the development of reasoning heuristics. Additionally, they have interesting implications for dual-process theories of reasoning, and they can also inform the debates about the rationality of reasoning heuristics and biases