Title
Vigilance Requires Hard Mental Work and Is Stressful.
Abstract
Objective: We describe major discoveries and developments in vigilance research. Background: Vigilance tasks have typically been viewed as undemanding assignments requiring little mental effort. The vigilance decrement function has also been considered to result from a decline in arousal brought about by understimulation. Methods: Recent research in vigilance is reviewed in four areas: studies of task type, perceived mental workload during vigilance, neural measures of resource demand in vigilance, and studies of task-induced stress. Results: Experiments comparing successive and simultaneous vigilance tasks support an attentional resource theory of vigilance. Subjective reports also show that the workload of vigilance is high and sensitive to factors that increase processing demands. Neuroimaging studies using transcranial Doppler sonography provide strong, independent evidence for resource changes linked to performance decrement in vigilance tasks. Finally, physiological and subjective reports confirm that vigilance tasks reduce task engagement and increase distress and that these changes rise with increased task difficulty. Conclusions: Converging evidence using behavioral, neural, and subjective measures shows that vigilance requires hard mental work and is stressful. Application: This research applies to most human-machine systems that require human monitoring, particularly those involving automated subsystems.
Year
DOI
Venue
2008
10.1518/001872008X312152
HUMAN FACTORS
Keywords
Field
DocType
human factors,occupational safety,injury prevention,suicide prevention,ergonomics
Social psychology,Arousal,Suicide prevention,Workload,Simulation,Human factors and ergonomics,Psychology,Vigilance (psychology),Injury prevention,Neuroimaging,Cognition
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
50
3
0018-7208
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
77
6.18
7
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Joel S. Warm119929.80
Raja Parasuraman21399164.79
Gerald Matthews316220.83