Experimental analysis of artificial signal type and performance feedback delivery schedule in attenuating vigilance decrement

Abstract

Past research has suggested that artificially increasing the number of signals that require a response will increase detection performance in a vigilance task. The present study examined the effect of adding artificial signals that were either identical to or distinctly different from true signals in a controlled two-hour monitoring task. Immediate machine-generated feedback was also paired with artificial signals. Signal probability for true signals was 2% and all artificial signal probabilities were 8%. The dependent measures were true signal hits, true signal hit variance, true signal hit decrement, variance for true signal hit decrement, residual variance for true signal hit decrement, false alarms and false alarm variance. Eighty-two university students participated in the study. A significant main effect due to Identical Artificial Signals was found for mean true signal hits (F 1,69 = 6.273, p < .025). A significant main effect due to Feedback was found for mean false alarms (F 1,71 = 8.150, p < .01) and a significant interaction was found in the mean true signal hit decrement (F 2,69 = 4.221, p < .025). The results suggest that immediate feedback and artificial signals that closely resemble the true signal can improve detection performance.