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EFFECTS OF SIGNAL SALIENCE AND NOISE ON PERFORMANCE AND STRESS IN AN ABBREVIATED VIGIL

HELTON, WILLIAM STOKELY
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1029530074

Abstract Details

2002, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : Psychology.
Vigilance or sustained attention tasks traditionally require observers to detect predetermined signals that occur unpredictably over periods of 30 min to several hours (Warm, 1984). These tasks are taxing and have been useful in revealing the effects of stress agents, such as infectious disease and drugs, on human performance (Alluisi, 1969; Damos & Parker, 1994; Warm, 1993). However, their long duration has been an inconvenience. Recently, Temple and his associates (Temple et al., 2000) developed an abbreviated 12-min vigilance task that duplicates many of the findings with longer duration vigils. The present study was designed to explore further the similarity of the abbreviated task to long-duration vigils by investigating the effects of signal salience and jet-aircraft engine noise on performance, operator stress, and coping strategies. Forty-eight observers (24 males and 24 females) were assigned at random to each of four conditions resulting from the factorial combination of signal salience (high and low contrast signals) and background noise (quiet and jet-aircraft noise). As is the case with long-duration vigils (Warm, 1993), signal detection in the abbreviated task was poorer for low salience than for high salience signals. In addition, stress scores, as indexed by the Dundee Stress State Questionnaire (Matthews, Joiner, Gilliland, Campbell, & Falconer, 1999), were elevated in the low as compared to the high salience condition. Unlike longer vigils, however, (Becker, Warm, Dember, & Hancock, 1996), signal detection in the abbreviated task was superior in the presence of aircraft noise than in quiet. Noise also attenuated the stress of the vigil, a result that is counter to previous findings regarding the effects of noise in a variety of other scenarios (Clark, 1984). Examination of observers' coping responses, as assessed by the Coping Inventory for Task Situations (Matthews & Campbell, 1998), indicated that problem-focused coping was the overwhelming coping strategy adopted by observers in the study and that the level of this coping strategy increased in noise. The beneficial effects of jet-aircraft noise for the abbreviated task differentiates it from longer vigilance tasks and suggests that noise may have short-term positive value in vigilance.
Dr. Joel S. Warm (Advisor)
1 p.
Psychology, Experimental
vigilance; stress; performance; arousal; noise

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Citations

  • HELTON, W. S. (2002). EFFECTS OF SIGNAL SALIENCE AND NOISE ON PERFORMANCE AND STRESS IN AN ABBREVIATED VIGIL [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1029530074

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • HELTON, WILLIAM. EFFECTS OF SIGNAL SALIENCE AND NOISE ON PERFORMANCE AND STRESS IN AN ABBREVIATED VIGIL. 2002. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1029530074.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • HELTON, WILLIAM. "EFFECTS OF SIGNAL SALIENCE AND NOISE ON PERFORMANCE AND STRESS IN AN ABBREVIATED VIGIL." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1029530074

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1029530074
© 2002, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.