Friendly Fire in a Simulated Firearms Task

Factors such as poor visibility, lack of situation awareness and bad communication have been shown to contribute to friendly fire incidents. However, to the authors’ knowledge, an individual’s ability to inhibit their motor response of shooting when a non-target is presented has not been investigated. This phenomenon has been modeled empirically using the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997) computer task. The SART is generally a high Go/low No-Go detection task whereby participants respond to numerous neutral stimuli and withhold to rare targets. In the current investigation, we further investigate the SART using a simulated small arms scenario to test whether lack of motor response inhibition can be modeled in a more ecologically valid environment. Additionally, we were interested in how error rates were impacted in low Go/high No-Go versions of the task. Thirteen university students completed a computer and simulated small arms scenario in a SART and low Go condition. Both the computer and small arms scenario revealed similar speed-accuracy trade-offs indicating participants’ inability to halt their pre-potent responses to targets even in a more ecologically valid environment. The SART may be used in future studies to model friendly fire scenarios

Spider Stimuli Improve Response Inhibition

Anxiety can have positive effects on some aspects of cognition and negative effects on others. The current study investigated whether task-relevant anxiety could improve peo- ple’s ability to withhold responses in a response inhibition task. Sixty-seven university stu- dents completed a modified and an unmodified version of the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997) and provided subjective measures of arousal and thoughts. Anxiety appeared to improve participants’ ability to withhold responses. Further, participants’ performance was consistent with a motor response inhibition perspective rather than a mind-wandering perspective of SART commission error performance. Errors of commission were associated with response times (speed-accuracy trade-off) as opposed to task-unrelated thoughts. Task-related thoughts were associated with the speed-accuracy trade-off. Conversely task-unrelated thoughts showed an association with errors of omission, suggesting this SART metric could be an indicator of sustained attention. Further investigation of the role of thoughts in the SART is warranted

Human Factors Issues in Using Micro-Uninhabited Vehicles in Urban Disasters

Technical advances in remotely operated vehicles (drones) have seen an increase in their use in a variety of work settings, including remote searches and damage assessment. In the case of disaster response and management, uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) could be extremely useful. For example in floods UAVs could be used to search for people trapped on roofs or floating on debris, in bushfires they could be used to improve the view of the fire and provided response managers with improved situational awareness, in marine environments UAVs could be used to search for lost people, and finally, in earthquakes UAVs could be used, if small enough, to search within buildings for damage assessment and searches. In the later case, this has already been attempted in response to the Christchurch February 22nd earthquakes, in which a Parrot A.R quadrocopter drone (commercial off-the-shelf drone) was flown into the Christchurch Cathedral in order to assess for damage. This idea radically reduces the risk to search and damage assessment personnel. However, actually flying the micro-UAV presents a significant challenge in these kinds of environments. In the present talk, we will discuss recent research at the University of Canterbury on human factors issues of using micro-UAVs in urban disaster scenarios. One of the challenges in flying micro-UAVs is that the pilot has limited sensory information. The pilot is flying with a limited field of view, a 2-d camera image instead of a 3-d naturalistic scene (out of a cockpit window), and the pilot receives no tactile or vestibular cues regarding the UAV’s orientation. One significant challenge in using micro-UAVs, therefore, in urban settings is operating the drone in constrained environments, for example, inside buildings. The turbulence and tight spacing of these environments presents a significant challenge to the pilot. We have been examining the issues involved in using micro-UAVs in these constrained environments. We will discuss training programs for pilots, motor control aspects of the piloting task, the relative costs and benefits of different control interfaces, and assessments of the cognitive workload of the piloting task. In the later research we have added a secondary mental workload to the pilot. This technique is called dual-tasking and it enables a sensitive assessment of the actual mental workload of a primary task. We had pilots engage in a piloting task and a secondary communication-like task. The secondary task represented communication with a co-worker and required the pilot to recall verbally transmitted words presented to the pilot during the flight operation. The pilots navigated and controlled the drone in simulated search operations (flying an obstacle course). We used the secondary task to assess the cognitive load of the flight task. In comparison to other simple motor tasks such as using a joystick to select targets on a computer screen the UAV piloting task is extremely demanding. We will also discuss future planned research

Human factors issues with the use of text-speak communication

Advances in communication technology have significantly changed how individuals communicate (Crystal, 2008). Individuals not only have auditory communication at the their disposal, but also text based communication available through cell phones or computers. Emergency response agencies have begun to utilize text messaging to warn people of impending natural disasters (Samarajiva & Waidvanatha, 2009). These early warning systems can likely save lives by allowing people to prepare accordingly. Text messaging may also be useful in actual emergency management operations, such as disaster response. In these settings, text based communication could be more beneficial than auditory communication in that it allows an individual to reread a message a later time; text messages serve as an augmentation to human memory which is fallible. For example, civil defense personnel could receive a text message in which details are critical (e.g., survivors on third floor of bank near stairway). Once the message is received, one can reread the message and extract key information that could potentially save lives. One potential problem with text messaging is the limited amount of space available and time it takes to write. To overcome limited amount of space the time limits, individuals incorporate shortening techniques (i.e., text-speak) that allows an individual to convey a word or phrase in a shorter amount of time and decreased amount of space (e.g., srvvrs on 3rd flor of bnk near th strwy, survivors on the third floor of the bank near the stairway). Although text-speak allows one to create a message faster and in a shorter amount of space, processing text-speak could exact a cognitive cost to the reader (Head, et al., 2012). It is likely that civil defense workers responding to natural disasters could be subject to processing text-speak while text messaging. For example, it is common for civil defense to use shortening techniques such as acronyms (e.g., EQC-earthquake commission, GEOC-Group Emergency Operations Centre and MoH-Ministry of Health)

Friendly fire and the proportion of friends to foes

Losses of inhibitory control may be partly responsible for some friendly fire incidents. The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997) may provide an appropriate empirical model for this. The current investigation aimed to provide an ecologically valid application of the SART to a small arms simulation and examine the effect of different proportions of enemy to friendly confederates. Seven university students engaged in a small arms simulation where they cleared a building floor using a near-infrared emitter gun, tasked with firing at confederates representing enemies and withholding fire to confederates representing friends. All participants completed three conditions which were differentiated by the proportion of enemies to friends present. As hypothesized, participants failed to withhold responses more often when the proportion of foes was higher, suggesting that a prepotent motor response routine had developed. This effect appeared to be disproportionately more substantial in the high foe condition relative to the others. Participants also subjectively reported higher levels of on-task focus as foe proportions increased, suggesting that they found this more mentally demanding. Future research could examine closer the nature of the performance reductions associated with high proportions of foes, as it appears that this is more complex than a simple linear relationship

Cognitive Fatigue Influences Time-On-Task during Bodyweight Resistance Training Exercise

Prior investigations have shown measurable performance impairments on continuous physical performance tasks when preceded by a cognitively fatiguing task. However, the effect of cognitive fatigue on bodyweight resistance training exercise task performance is unknown. In the current investigation 18 amateur athletes completed a full body exercise task preceded by either a cognitive fatiguing or control intervention. In a randomized repeated measure design, each participant completed the same exercise task preceded by a 52 minute cognitively fatiguing intervention (vigilance) or control intervention (video). Data collection sessions were separated by 1 week. Participants rated the fatigue intervention as being significantly more mentally demanding than the control intervention (p .05). There was no statistical difference for heart rate or metabolic expenditure as a function of fatigue intervention during exercise. Cognitively fatigued athletes have decreased time-on-task in bodyweight resistance training exercise tasks

The effect of task-relevant and irrelevant anxiety-provoking stimuli on response inhibition

The impact of anxiety-provoking stimuli on the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997), and response inhibition more generally, is currently unclear. Participants completed four SARTs embedded with picture stimuli of two levels of emotion (negative or neutral) and two levels of task-relevance (predictive or non-predictive of imminent No-Go stimuli). Negative pictures had a small but detectable adverse effect on performance regardless of their task-relevance. Overall, response times and rates of commission errors were more dependent upon the predictive value (relevance) of the pictures than their attention-capturing nature (i.e., negative valence). The findings raise doubt over whether anxiety improves response inhibition, and also lend support to a response strategy perspective of SART performance, as opposed to a mindlessness or mind-wandering explanation

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

Real life does not always get in the way: verbal memory and the Sustained Attention to Response Task

The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) is a go/no-go task where participants must respond frequently to target stimuli and withhold responses from infrequent neutral stimuli. Researchers have shown that the fast and frequent responding characteristic of SART is typically associated with difficulty withholding responses to no-go stimuli. Imposing additional cognitive demands has been shown to further impair task performance. In the present research, participants completed a modified SART task, a narrative memory task, and a dual-task condition where both were done simultaneously. No significant performance impairments were found in the dual- compared to single-task conditions. The tasks’ non-overlapping resource demands, alongside a potential arousing benefit of the memory task, may explain the lack of notable dual-task interference. Future research is needed to better understand the effects of arousal and other factors that may help to uncouple errors of commission from response time, particularly in tasks with high ecological validity

A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study of the effects of configural properties on sustained attention

Forty-five participants performed a vigilance task during which they were required to respond to a critical signal at a local feature level, while the global display was altered between groups (either a circle, a circle broken apart and reversed, or a reconnected figure). The shape in two of the groups formed a configurative whole (the circle and reconnected conditions), while the remaining shape had no complete global element (broken circle). Performance matched the results found in the previous experiments using this stimulus set, where a configural superiority effect was found to influence accuracy over time. Physiological data, measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, revealed elevated activation in the right pre-frontal cortex compared to the left pre-frontal cortex during the task. Additionally, bilateral activation was found in the conditions that formed configurative wholes, while hemispheric differences over time were found in the condition that did not. These findings suggest that configural aspects of stimuli may explain why non-typical laterality effects have been found in similar research