Operators currently controlling Unmanned Aerial Vehicles report significant boredom, and such systems will likely become more automated in the future. Similar problems are found in process control, commercial aviation, and medical settings. To examine the effect of boredom in such settings, a long
duration low task load experiment was conducted. Three low task load levels requiring operator input every 10, 20, or 30 minutes were tested in a our-hour study using a multiple unmanned vehicle simulation environment that leverages decentralized algorithms for sometimes imperfect vehicle
scheduling. Reaction times to system-generated events generally decreased across the four hours, as did participants’ ability to maintain directed attention. Overall, participants spent almost half of the time in a
distracted state. The top performer spent the majority of time in directed and divided attention states. Unexpectedly, the second-best participant, only 1% worse than the top performer, was distracted almost one third of the experiment, but exhibited a periodic switching strategy, allowing him to pay just enough attention to assist the automation when needed. Indeed, four of the five top performers were distracted more than one-third of the time. These findings suggest that distraction due to boring, low task load
environments can be effectively managed through efficient attention switching. Future work is needed to determine optimal frequency and duration of attention state switches given various exogenous attributes,
as well as individual variability. These findings have implications for the design of and personnel selection for supervisory control systems where operators monitor highly automated systems for long durations with only occasional or rare input.This work was supported by Aurora Flight Sciences under the ONR Science of Autonomy program as well as the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under Code 34 and MURI [grant number N00014-08-C-070]
