Performance and Assessment of Accuracy in a Visual Sustained Attention Task

Vigilance, or sustained attention, typically requires observers to monitor for infrequent critical signals over extended periods of time (Warm, 2003). Critical signals are presented differently than the more frequent neutral signals that we experience in perception and are typically indications of impending danger that demand attention. Past research has proposed that the decline in vigilance as an attention task continues for some time and is caused by mindlessness, or withdrawal of attention from the monitoring task (Robertson et al., 1997). The present research investigates the ability to detect changes in visual stimuli. Participants will be presented with sets of stimuli containing four arrows facing the same clockwise or counter-clockwise direction in a circle. Participants will respond when a set has one arrow facing the opposite direction from the other three. In addition, participants will be queried about their confidence in the accuracy of their detections. Our expectation is consistent with the typical decline in attention over monitoring time; that is, confidence will also diminish as the vigilance task continues. The results of the present study can be applied to any situation requiring sustained monitoring of informational displays. For example, pilots and technicians are required to monitor streams of visual and auditory stimuli for prolonged periods of time where the consequence of not detecting a critical signal could be catastrophic. Understanding more about vigilance processes can help avoid disaster.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/stander_posters/1168/thumbnail.jp

Detecting Critical Signals in Sustained Visual Attention Tasks Using Simulated Radar Screens

Vigilance, or sustained attention, typically requires observers to monitor many signals for infrequent critical signals over extended periods of time (Warm, 2003). Infrequent signals, otherwise known as critical signals, are presented differently in some manner and less frequently than the more common and frequent neutral signals. Critical signals typically indicate impending danger that requires immediate action to be made by an observer. Past research posits that sustained attention during a vigilance task declines for some time and is most likely caused by mindlessness, or a withdrawal of attention from the monitoring task (Robertson et al., 1997). The present research investigated the ability of participants to detect changes in visual stimuli and the confidence in their ability to accurately identify critical signals. Participants were presented with sets of stimuli containing four arrows in a circle facing the same clockwise or counter-clockwise direction. Participants responded to the critical signal in the set, which was when one arrow faced the direction opposite to the other three. Participants were queried about their confidence in the accuracy of their detections after all critical and an equal number of neutral signals. Our expectation is consistent with the typical decline in attention over time; that is, confidence will also diminish as the vigilance task continues. The results of the present study can be applied to any situation requiring sustained monitoring of informational displays. For example, pilots and technicians are required to monitor streams of visual and auditory stimuli for prolonged periods of time where the consequence of not detecting a critical signal could be catastrophic. Understanding more about vigilance processes can help avoid disaster.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/stander_posters/1355/thumbnail.jp

Is Semantic Vigilance Impaired by Narrative Memory Demands? Theory and Applications

OBJECTIVE: Two verbal tasks were utilized in a dual-task paradigm to explore performance theories and prior dual-tasking results. BACKGROUND: Both the decline in vigilance performance over time, or vigilance decrement, and limited dual-tasking ability may be explained by limited mental resources. Resource theorists would recommend removing task demands to avoid cognitive overload, while mindlessness theorists may recommend adding engaging task demands to prevent boredom. Prior research demonstrated interference between a verbal free recall and semantic vigilance task, but exploring tasks with greater ecological validity is necessary. METHOD: A narrative memory task and semantic vigilance task were performed individually and simultaneously. Relative performance impairments were compared to a previous dual-task pairing. RESULTS: The semantic vigilance task caused performance degradation to the narrative memory task and vice versa. A vigilance decrement was not observed, and the interference was to a lesser extent than when the semantic vigilance task was paired with a free recall task. CONCLUSION: Resource theory was supported, though passive learning effects during a semantic vigilance task with novel stimuli may prevent a vigilance decrement. The interference was less than that of a previous similar dual-task pairing, but even tasks as routine as listening to a conversation or story can impair other task performance. APPLICATION: A better understanding of resource theory and dual-task performance outcomes can help inform feasible task loads and improve efficiency and safety of operators in high-risk and other professions

Effects of Sustained Attention on Auditory Displays, Mental Workload, and Stress

Vigilance can be defined as the sustained attention required in detecting transient and infrequent signals over an extended period of time (Warm, 2003). The current research defines these infrequent signals as critical signals in order to demonstrate that their appearance marks some kind of unfavorable event. Typically, these experiments focus on the display of either or both auditory and visual stimuli. However, in the study described here, two experiments study only auditory stimuli. The first experiment manipulates the duration of an auditory tone using two tones of equal loudness that last for different lengths of time. In this instance, the critical signal is the tone with the shorter duration. The second experiment manipulates the spatial location of auditory tones, using the same type of tone. Although, the tones are of equal duration, they are spatially presented at different locations in auditory space around the head of a perceiver. In this instance, the critical signal will be the tone that is off-center in relation to the head and heard mainly in one ear. The relevance of this research is that many professions (e.g., air traffic control) require sustained monitoring to detect changes in signals, including auditory tones. There is a potential for catastrophic events, such as the fatal crash of an airplane, if a critical auditory signal is missed by an air traffic controller. Therefore, studies of the factors affecting the monitoring of auditory signals will continue to focus on the ability of people to accurately perform sustained attention tasks.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/stander_posters/1356/thumbnail.jp

Mechanisms of Vigilance Loss in Sensory and Cognitive Tasks

When observers monitor for infrequent signals for extended durations, they generally experience a decline in detections over time. This decline is termed the vigilance decrement. Current theories of vigilance attribute the decrement to three potential mechanisms: conservative shifts in response bias, losses of sensitivity, and an increased rate of attentional lapses over time. Understanding which mechanisms contribute to the losses of vigilance is necessary to mitigate the decrement in applied settings. Unfortunately, much of the existing literature examining vigilance performance relies on measures that are not suited for distinguishing between all three proposed mechanisms. Using novel methods of analysis, the present project examined the extent to which bias shifts, sensitivity losses, and attentional lapses contributed to the vigilance decrement across a range of vigilance tasks. Study 1 (Chapter 3) used psychometric curves to analyze changes in response bias, sensitivity, and lapse rate in two online vigilance tasks. Data showed that the decrement was largely driven by an attentional lapses and conservative shifts in bias over time, with inconclusive evidence for a sensitivity loss. Study 2 (Chapter 4) presents a generative process model to simulate cognitive mechanisms directly and tests the adequacy of the model by reanalyzing data previously fitted with psychometric curves. Results provide converging evidence that the decrement was driven by attentional lapses and shifts in bias. Study 3 (Chapter 5) uses the generative model to assess vigilance performance within a cognitive vigilance task. Vigilance was relatively stable in the cognitive task and data gave strong evidence that the decrement, albeit small, was driven by an increase in attentional lapses. Together, findings provide strong evidence that vigilance decrement is driven by attentional lapses, followed by conservative shifts in bias. Relatively weak evidence for sensitivity loss. Suggests interventions that target lapses and response criteria most effective for minimizing vigilance losses in applied settings

BENEFITS AND COST OF DUAL-TASKING IN A VIGILANCE TASK: A LABORATORY AND DRIVING SIMULATOR INVESTIGATION

It is believed that under certain conditions, the presence of a secondary task such as a cell phone conversation would minimize a decrease in vigilance. The current study investigates this assumption by using two different vigilance paradigms. Further investigations were done by applying the same secondary task conditions to a monotonous driving scenario in a simulator. Results from the vigilance studies showed robust effects of dual task interference, and improvement in task performance for participants engaged in dual task from beginning to end. It was noted that the benefit of an improvement in task performance did not outweigh its cost as the reported improvement only reached a level similar to that of an individual who was low in vigilance. Results from the driving simulator indicated a possible driving improvement with the presence of a secondary task during later stages of the driving task as indicated by smaller lane keeping variability. The perceived improvement was questioned as there was a significantly poorer recall memory under dual task conditions. In general, it might be suggested that a secondary task may improve task performance under vigilance conditions, but the reported benefit may not outweigh its costs

The nature and measurement of sustaining attention over time: The influence of cognitive ability, internal distraction, arousal, and motivation on sustained attention

It is evident that it takes a great deal of effort to sustain our attention on any one thing over a period of minutes or even seconds. This ability to sustain attention is critical for many everyday tasks and is often seen as a fundamental factor underlying differences in cognitive ability. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that determine how long we can voluntarily sustain our attention. Across two studies I used a novel task, the sustained attention- to-cue task (SACT), to assess sustained attention. The critical element of the task is to sustain attention at a cued location for a variable amount of time (0 – 12 seconds). In Study 1, I investigated how individual differences in cognitive ability are related to sustained attention. I found that those higher on attention control showed less of a decline in performance the longer attention had to be sustained. However, sustained attention performance was not related to working memory capacity or fluid intelligence. In Study 2, I investigated how susceptibility to distraction, changes in arousal, and motivation are related to sustained attention performance on the SACT. Overall, there was a large decline in attention on a shorter timescale based on performance, eye gaze, pupil size, and mind wandering measures. There were no changes in attention at a longer timescale, however there was strong evidence that arousal declined over the course of the task. Reward and motivation lead to improvements in attention overall and motivation led to improvements in sustained attention at a shorter timescale. In general, these findings suggest that attention can fluctuate and wane over a relatively short time scale of around 10 seconds or less and that this is related to individual differences in attention control, distractibility, arousal, and motivation.Ph.D

An Exploration of the Feasibility of Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy as a Neurofeedback Cueing System for the Mitigation of the Vigilance Decrement

Vigilance is the capacity for observers to maintain attention over extended periods of time, and has most often been operationalized as the ability to detect rare and critical signals (Davies & Parasuraman, 1982; Parasuraman, 1979; Warm, 1984). Humans, however, have natural physical and cognitive limitations that preclude successful long-term vigilance performance and consequently, without some means of assistance, failures in operator vigilance are likely to occur. Such a decline in monitoring performance over time has been a robust finding in vigilance experiments for decades and has been called the vigilance decrement function (Davies & Parasuraman, 1982; Mackworth, 1948). One of the most effective countermeasures employed to maintain effective performance has been cueing: providing the operator with a reliable prompt concerning signal onset probability. Most protocols have based such cues on task-related or environmental factors. The present dissertation examines the efficacy of cueing when nominally based on operator state (i.e., blood oxygenation of cortical tissue) in a novel vigilance task incorporating dynamic displays over three studies. Results pertaining to performance outcomes, physiological measures (cortical blood oxygenation and heart rate variability), and perceived workload and stress are interpreted via Signal Detection Theory and the Resource Theory of vigilance

Exploring the Role of the Dorsal Attention Network in Sustained Attention With rTMS

Sustained attention that is effortful during challenging cognitive tasks has been associated with robust activity in brain areas involved with cognitive control, collectively referred to as the dorsal attention network (DAN). In contrast, the periods of optimal sustained attention have been associated with relatively less DAN activity than periods of struggle. Optimal sustained attention may be less dependent on DAN function and more dependent on brain networks related to task automation such as the default mode network (DMN). Alternatively, optimal sustained attention may be recruiting DAN function efficiently, thus resulting in less overall activity. These two hypotheses were examined by temporarily disrupting DAN activity by applying repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to the frontal eye fields (FEF) in the DAN and then measuring sustained attention to a cognitive task. Subjects randomly received real or sham rTMS to the left or right FEF and then performed a modified go/no-go sustained attention task referred to as the gradCPT. For subjects receiving real rTMS to the right FEF, response accuracy decreased and reaction time variability increased on the gradCPT during periods of optimal sustained attention. The findings suggest that optimal sustained attention to cognitive tasks is supported by the refined, economical recruitment of right hemisphere DAN function

The effects of response probability on commission errors in high go low no-go dual response versions of the sustained attention to response task (SART)

In the current investigation, we modified the high Go low No-Go Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) by replacing the single response on Go trials with a dual response (dual response SART or DR SART). In three experiments a total of 80 participants completed the SART and versions of the DR SART in which response probabilities varied from 50-50, through 70-30 to 90-10. The probability of No-Go withhold stimuli was .11 in all experiments. Using a dynamic utility based model proposed by Peebles and Bothell (2004) we predicted that the 50-50 DR-SART would dramatically reduce commission errors. Additionally, the model predicted that the probability of commission errors to be an increasing function of response frequency. Both predictions were confirmed. Although the increasing rate of commission errors with response probability can also be accommodated by the rationale originally proposed for the SART by its creators (Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997) the fact that the current DR SART results and SART findings in general can be accommodated by a utility model without need for any attention processes is a challenge to views that ascribe commission errors to lapses of sustained attention