ORCID Profile
0000-0002-5434-0348
Current Organisation
University of Western Australia
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Psychology | Industrial and Organisational Psychology | Psychology not elsewhere classified | Learning, Memory, Cognition And Language | Industrial And Organisational Psychology | Decision Making | Cognitive Science | Personality, Abilities and Assessment | Computer-Human Interaction | Psychology Not Elsewhere Classified | Cognitive Science not elsewhere classified | Sensory Processes, Perception and Performance
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences | Air Safety | Air transport | Behavioural and cognitive sciences | Education and training not elsewhere classified | Human Capital Issues | Emerging Defence Technologies | Command, Control and Communications | Navy | National Security | Energy Transmission and Distribution (excl. Hydrogen) | Computer software and services not elsewhere classified | Defence not elsewhere classified | Diagnostic Methods |
Related Links
Publications
Does the Key Task Measure Prospective Memory? Cautionary Findings from Parallel Studies in HIV Disease and Older Adults
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 07-03-2019
Abstract: Despite its brevity and face validity, little is known about the construct validity of the naturalistic “Key Task” of prospective memory (PM), in which an examinee is instructed to remind the examiner at a designated time to retrieve keys (or another belonging) placed out of sight. Study 1 included 162 HIV+ and 52 HIV− comparison participants who completed the Key Task alongside well-validated measures of PM and a comprehensive neuropsychological battery that included everyday functioning measures. Study 2 used broadly parallel methods in 168 older community-dwelling Australians. Overall, the Key Task was not reliably associated with neurocognitive functioning (including clinical and experimental measures of PM), PM symptoms, or everyday functioning in either s le. The Key Task did not demonstrate compelling evidence of construct validity among persons living with HIV disease or older adults, which raises doubts regarding its clinical usefulness as a measure of PM.
Evidence accumulation modelling in the wild
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2023
Varying the Complexity of the Prospective Memory Decision Process in an Air Traffic Control Simulation
Publisher: Hogrefe Publishing Group
Date: 2011
DOI: 10.1027/2151-2604/A000051
Abstract: Operators that monitor and control dynamic displays (air traffic control [ATC], naval radar tracking) sometimes fail to remember to perform deferred tasks. Such memory failures have been studied in the laboratory, but only recently applied to tasks such as ATC ( Loft & Remington, 2010 Loft, Finnerty, & Remington, 2011 Loft, Smith, & Bhaskara, 2011 ). In work domains such as ATC, operators must often consider multiple display features before determining an action. The current study examined the effect of varying the number of aircraft display features that in iduals need to process for the prospective memory (PM) task. Participants made more PM errors, and were slower to make aircraft acceptance decisions and to detect conflicts, when the PM task required that target aircraft satisfied one of the two possible conditions, compared to only one possible condition. Directions for research are discussed that should continue to bridge the gap between PM in basic and applied settings.
The effect of multi-tasking training on performance, situation awareness, and workload in simulated air traffic control
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-2022
DOI: 10.1002/ACP.3977
Abstract: Increasingly higher demands are being made on the capacity‐limited cognitive capabilities of human operators as they strive to maintain situation awareness (i.e., understanding “what is going on”) and performance in complex tasks. In the current study we asked whether: (a) training administered via a mobile phone‐based app could improve multitasking and (b) improved multitasking in the app would generalize to improved performance and situation awareness in a simulated air traffic control task (ATC). Participants completed the ATC task before and after multiple sessions of app‐based multitasking training or control training. Multitasking on the app improved across training sessions. However, this did not lead to improved performance or situation awareness, or workload reduction, relative to control training on the ATC task. These outcomes indicate that app‐based multitasking training based on repetition of a single training task will not necessarily yield generalizable benefits to human performance in other complex dynamic tasks.
Prospective Memory and Task Interference in a Continuous Monitoring Dynamic Display Task
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2010
DOI: 10.1037/A0018900
Abstract: Theories and methods from the prospective memory literature were used to anticipate how in iduals would maintain and retrieve intentions in a continuous monitoring dynamic display task. Participants accepted aircraft into sectors and detected aircraft conflicts during an air traffic control simulation. They were sometimes required to substitute new actions for routine actions when accepting aircraft traveling at certain speeds or altitudes, or with certain call signs. In Experiment 1, prospective memory error increased with intent to deviate from strong compared to weak routine, and this effect was larger for altitude intentions compared to speed intentions. In addition, errors increased when intentions were general compared to specific. Participants also missed more conflicts when deviating from strong compared to weak routine. In Experiment 2, errors increased for intentions nonfocal to ongoing tasks compared to focal, and this effect was larger for altitude intentions compared to call sign intentions. Participants were slower to accept aircraft when holding nonfocal compared to focal intentions, and slower to accept aircraft and detect conflicts when holding focal intentions compared to no intentions. These findings are consistent with theories that assume that in iduals allocate limited-capacity attentional resources to prospective memory tasks. Increased error for altitude intentions, together with the effect of routine strength, suggest a vulnerability to error with increased strength of association between prospective memory cues and competing ongoing tasks. Ongoing tasks that focus attention on cues may sometimes impair, rather than benefit, intention retrieval.
An integrative formal model of motivation and decision making: The MGPM*.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 09-2016
DOI: 10.1037/APL0000121
Abstract: We develop and test an integrative formal model of motivation and decision making. The model, referred to as the extended multiple-goal pursuit model (MGPM*), is an integration of the multiple-goal pursuit model (Vancouver, Weinhardt, & Schmidt, 2010) and decision field theory (Busemeyer & Townsend, 1993). Simulations of the model generated predictions regarding the effects of goal type (approach vs. avoidance), risk, and time sensitivity on prioritization. We tested these predictions in an experiment in which participants pursued different combinations of approach and avoidance goals under different levels of risk. The empirical results were consistent with the predictions of the MGPM*. Specifically, participants pursuing 1 approach and 1 avoidance goal shifted priority from the approach to the avoidance goal over time. Among participants pursuing 2 approach goals, those with low time sensitivity prioritized the goal with the larger discrepancy, whereas those with high time sensitivity prioritized the goal with the smaller discrepancy. Participants pursuing 2 avoidance goals generally prioritized the goal with the smaller discrepancy. Finally, all of these effects became weaker as the level of risk increased. We used quantitative model comparison to show that the MGPM* explained the data better than the original multiple-goal pursuit model, and that the major extensions from the original model were justified. The MGPM* represents a step forward in the development of a general theory of decision making during multiple-goal pursuit. (PsycINFO Database Record
Minimizing the Disruptive Effects of Prospective Memory in Simulated Air Traffic Control
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2013
DOI: 10.1037/A0034141
Strategic attention and decision control support prospective memory in a complex dual-task environment
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.COGNITION.2019.05.011
Abstract: Human performance in complex multiple-task environments depends critically on the interplay between cognitive control and cognitive capacity. In this paper we propose a tractable computational model of how cognitive control and capacity influence the speed and accuracy of decisions made in the event-based prospective memory (PM) paradigm, and in doing so test a new quantitative formulation that measures two distinct components of cognitive capacity (gain and focus) that apply generally to choices among two or more options. Consistent with prior work, in iduals used proactive control (increased ongoing task thresholds under PM load) and reactive control (inhibited ongoing task accumulation rates to PM items) to support PM performance. In iduals used cognitive gain to increase the amount of resources allocated to the ongoing task under time pressure and PM load. However, when demands exceeded the capacity limit, resources were reallocated (shared) between ongoing task and PM processes. Extending previous work, in iduals used cognitive focus to control the quality of processing for the ongoing and PM tasks based on the particular demand and payoff structure of the environment (e.g., higher focus for higher priority tasks lower focus under high time pressure and with PM load). Our model provides the first detailed quantitative understanding of cognitive gain and focus as they apply to evidence accumulation models, which - along with cognitive control mechanisms - support decision-making in complex multiple-task environments.
Racing to remember: A theory of decision control in event-based prospective memory.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 11-2018
DOI: 10.1037/REV0000113
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) requires remembering to perform intended deferred actions when particular stimuli or events are encountered in the future. We propose a detailed process theory within Braver's (2012) proactive and reactive framework of the way control is maintained over the competing demands of prospective memory decisions and decisions associated with ongoing task activities. The theory is instantiated in a quantitative "Prospective Memory Decision Control" (PMDC) architecture, which uses linear ballistic evidence accumulation (Brown & Heathcote, 2008) to model both PM and ongoing decision processes. Prospective control is exerted via decision thresholds, as in Heathcote, Loft, and Remington's (2015) "Delay Theory" of the impact of PM demands on ongoing-task decisions. However, PMDC goes beyond Delay Theory by simultaneously accounting for both PM task decisions and ongoing task decisions. We use Bayesian estimation to apply PMDC to experiments manipulating PM target focality (i.e., the extent to which the ongoing task directs attention to the features of PM targets processed at encoding) and the relative importance of the PM task. As well as confirming Delay Theory's proactive control of ongoing task thresholds, the comprehensive account provided by PMDC allowed us to detect both proactive control of the PM accumulator threshold and reactive control of the relative rates of the PM and ongoing-task evidence accumulation processes. We discuss potential extensions of PMDC to account for other factors that may be prevalent in real-world PM, such as failures of memory retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
Prospective memory in the red zone: Cognitive control and capacity sharing in a complex, multi-stimulus task.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2019
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000224
Abstract: Remembering to perform a planned action upon encountering a future event requires event-based Prospective Memory (PM). PM is required in many human factors settings in which operators must process a great deal of complex, uncertain information from an interface. We study event-based PM in such an environment. Our task, which previous research has found is very demanding (Palada, Neal, Tay, & Heathcote, 2018), requires monitoring ships as they cross the ocean on a display. We applied the Prospective Memory Decision Control Model (Strickland, Loft, Remington, & Heathcote, 2018) to understand the cognitive mechanisms that underlie PM performance in such a demanding environment. We found evidence of capacity sharing between monitoring for PM items and performing the ongoing surveillance task, whereas studies of PM in simpler paradigms have not (e.g., Strickland et al., 2018). We also found that participants applied proactive and reactive control (Braver, 2012) to adapt to the demanding task environment. Our findings illustrate the value of human factors simulations to study capacity sharing between competing task processes. They also illustrate the value of cognitive models to illuminate the processes underlying adaptive behavior in complex environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Should We Just Let the Machines Do It? The Benefit and Cost of Action Recommendation and Action Implementation Automation
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 08-02-2021
Abstract: To examine the effects of action recommendation and action implementation automation on performance, workload, situation awareness (SA), detection of automation failure, and return-to-manual performance in a submarine track management task. Theory and meta-analytic evidence suggest that with increasing degrees of automation (DOA), operator performance improves and workload decreases, but SA and return-to-manual performance declines. Participants monitored the location and heading of contacts in order to classify them, mark their closest point of approach (CPA), and e when necessary. Participants were assigned either no automation, action recommendation automation, or action implementation automation. An automation failure occurred late in the task, whereby the automation provided incorrect classification advice or implemented incorrect classification actions. Compared to no automation, action recommendation automation benefited automated task performance and lowered workload, but cost nonautomated task performance. Action implementation automation resulted in perfect automated task performance (by default) and lowered workload, with no costs to nonautomated task performance, SA, or return-to-manual performance compared to no automation. However, participants provided action implementation automation were less likely to detect the automation failure compared to those provided action recommendations, and made less accurate classifications immediately after the automation failure, compared to those provided no automation. Action implementation automation produced the anticipated benefits but also caused poorer automation failure detection. While action implementation automation may be effective for some task contexts, system designers should be aware that operators may be less likely to detect automation failures and that performance may suffer until such failures are detected.
Target learning in event-based prospective memory.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 08-2022
DOI: 10.1037/XLM0000900
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) tasks require in iduals to remember to perform a previously planned action when they encounter a specific event. Often, the natural environments in which PM tasks occur are embedded are constantly changing, requiring humans to adapt by learning. We examine one such adaptation by integrating PM target learning with the prospective memory decision control (PMDC) cognitive model. We apply this augmented model to an experiment that manipulated exposure to PM targets, comparing a single-target PM condition where the target was well learned from the outset, to a multiple-target PM condition with less initial PM target exposure, allowing us to examine the effect of continued target learning opportunities. Single-target PM accuracy was near ceiling whereas multiple-target PM accuracy was initially poorer but improved throughout the course of the experiment. PM response times were longer for the multiple- compared with single-target PM task but this difference also decreased over time. The model indicated that PM trial evidence accumulation rates, and the inhibition of competing responses, were initially higher for single compared to multiple PM targets, but that this difference decreased over time due to the learning of multiple-targets over the target repetitions. These outcomes provide insight into how the processes underlying event-based PM can dynamically evolve over time, and a modeling framework to further investigate the effect of learning on event-based PM decision processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Intraindividual variability in neurocognitive performance is associated with time-based prospective memory in older adults
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 20-02-2018
Modeling and Predicting Mental Workload in En Route Air Traffic Control: Critical Review and Broader Implications
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-2007
Abstract: Objective: We perform a critical review of research on mental workload in en route air traffic control (ATC). We present a model of operator strategic behavior and workload management through which workload can be predicted within ATC and other complex work systems. Background: Air traffic volume is increasing worldwide. If air traffic management organizations are to meet future demand safely, better models of controller workload are needed. Method: We present the theoretical model and then review investigations of how effectively traffic factors, airspace factors, and operational constraints predict controller workload. Results: Although task demand has a strong relationship with workload, evidence suggests that the relationship depends on the capacity of the controllers to select priorities, manage their cognitive resources, and regulate their own performance. We review research on strategies employed by controllers to minimize the control activity and information-processing requirements of control tasks. Conclusion: Controller workload will not be effectively modeled until controllers' strategies for regulating the cognitive impact of task demand have been modeled. Application: Actual and potential applications of our conclusions include a reorientation of workload modeling in complex work systems to capture the dynamic and adaptive nature of the operator's work. Models based around workload regulation may be more useful in helping management organizations adapt to future control regimens in complex work systems.
The Impact of Transparency and Decision Risk on Human–Automation Teaming Outcomes
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 02-08-2021
DOI: 10.1177/00187208211033445
Abstract: Examine the effects of decision risk and automation transparency on the accuracy and timeliness of operator decisions, automation verification rates, and subjective workload. Decision aids typically benefit performance, but can provide incorrect advice due to contextual factors, creating the potential for automation disuse or misuse. Decision aids can reduce an operator’s manual problem evaluation, and it can also be strategic for operators to minimize verifying automated advice in order to manage workload. Participants assigned the optimal unmanned vehicle to complete missions. A decision aid provided advice but was not always reliable. Two levels of decision aid transparency were manipulated between participants. The risk associated with each decision was manipulated using a financial incentive scheme. Participants could use a calculator to verify automated advice however, this resulted in a financial penalty. For high- compared with low-risk decisions, participants were more likely to reject incorrect automated advice and were more likely to verify automation and reported higher workload. Increased transparency did not lead to more accurate decisions and did not impact workload but decreased automation verification and eliminated the increased decision time associated with high decision risk. Increased automation transparency was beneficial in that it decreased automation verification and decreased decision time. The increased workload and automation verification for high-risk missions is not necessarily problematic given the improved automation correct rejection rate. The findings have potential application to the design of interfaces to improve human–automation teaming, and for anticipating the impact of decision risk on operator behavior.
Automated Decision Aids
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 06-03-2023
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000463
Prospective Memory in an Air Traffic Control Simulation: External Aids That Signal When To Act
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2011
DOI: 10.1037/A0022845
Subjective cognitive decline disrupts aspects of prospective memory in older adults with HIV disease
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-04-2022
Individual differences in higher-level cognitive abilities do not predict overconfidence in complex task performance
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.CONCOG.2019.102777
Abstract: Even when people perform tasks poorly, they often report unrealistically positive estimates of their own abilities in these situations. To better understand the origins of such overconfidence, we investigated whether it could be predicted by in idual differences in working memory, attentional control, and self-reported trait impulsivity. Overconfidence was estimated by contrasting objective and subjective measures of situation awareness (the ability to perceive and understand task-relevant information in the environment), acquired during a challenging air traffic control simulation. We found no significant relationships between overconfidence and either working memory or attentional control. However, increased impulsivity significantly predicted greater overconfidence. In addition, overall levels of overconfidence were lower in our complex task than in previous studies that used less-complex lab-based tasks. Our results suggest that overconfidence may not be linked to high-level cognitive abilities, but that dynamic tasks with frequent opportunities for performance feedback may reduce misconceptions about personal performance.
How semantic processing affects recognition memory
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2020
ATC-labAdvanced: An air traffic control simulator with realism and control
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-2009
DOI: 10.3758/BRM.41.1.118
Explaining short-term memory phenomena with long-term memory theory
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-03-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S12144-021-02615-5
Abstract: The idea that some recently encountered items reside in a special state where they do not have to be retrieved has come to be a critical component of short-term memory theories. In the current work, the existence of such a special state was tested using the probe-recognition paradigm followed by a delayed recognition test. Across two experiments participants received a series of probe recognition trials where list lengths of 1-, 4- and 8-items were intermixed. Delayed recognition performance for non-target probes was poorer for the only item in 1-item lists than for the last item in multi-item lists. At the same time, the delayed recognition of studied-but-not probed items was better for the 1-item list, compared to the last item in a multi-item list, indicating that some form of a retrieval effect was involved and not lower levels of attention/initial learning. An examination of the size of the testing effect as it varied across list lengths and experiments also indicated that residence in a special state was not playing an important role. Overall, the data are not in support of the assumption that items at the focus of attention are in a special state that do not require retrieval. Our conclusions are that special states cannot be used to define STM memory and that the probe recognition paradigm may be useful in determining how testing affects memory.
Forgetting induced speeding: Can prospective memory failure account for drivers exceeding the speed limit?
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000118
Abstract: It is generally assumed that drivers speed intentionally because of factors such as frustration with the speed limit or general impatience. The current study examined whether speeding following an interruption could be better explained by unintentional prospective memory (PM) failure. In these situations, interrupting drivers may create a PM task, with speeding the result of drivers forgetting their newly encoded intention to travel at a lower speed after interruption. Across 3 simulated driving experiments, corrected or uncorrected speeding in recently reduced speed zones (from 70 km/h to 40 km/h) increased on average from 8% when uninterrupted to 33% when interrupted. Conversely, the probability that participants traveled under their new speed limit in recently increased speed zones (from 40 km/h to 70 km/h) increased from 1% when uninterrupted to 23% when interrupted. Consistent with a PM explanation, this indicates that interruptions lead to a general failure to follow changed speed limits, not just to increased speeding. Further testing a PM explanation, Experiments 2 and 3 manipulated variables expected to influence the probability of PM failures and subsequent speeding after interruptions. Experiment 2 showed that performing a cognitively demanding task during the interruption, when compared with unfilled interruptions, increased the probability of initially speeding from 1% to 11%, but that participants were able to correct (reduce) their speed. In Experiment 3, providing participants with 10s longer to encode the new speed limit before interruption decreased the probability of uncorrected speeding after an unfilled interruption from 30% to 20%. Theoretical implications and implications for road design interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record
The effects of HIV disease and older age on laboratory-based, naturalistic, and self-perceived symptoms of prospective memory: does retrieval cue type and delay interval matter?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-03-2016
Attention and multi-tasking
Publisher: American Psychological Association
Date: 2015
DOI: 10.1037/14528-000
Investigating how implementation intentions improve non-focal prospective memory tasks
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2014
Sharing imagery and analysis tools in a simulated submarine control room
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2024
Individual Differences in the Effect of Vertical Separation on Conflict Detection in Air Traffic Control
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2011
Wait a second: Brief delays in responding reduce focality effects in event-based prospective memory
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 07-2013
DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2012.750677
Abstract: Remembering to perform deferred actions when an event is encountered in the future is referred to as event-based prospective memory (PM). We examined whether the failure of in iduals to allocate sufficient attentional resources to nonfocal PM tasks can be linked to the response demands inherent in PM paradigms that require the PM task to race for response selection with the speeded ongoing task. In three experiments, participants performed a lexical decision task while being required to make a separate PM response to a specific word (focal), an exemplar of a category (nonfocal), or a syllable (nonfocal). We manipulated the earliest time participants could make task responses by presenting a tone at varying onsets (0–1,600 ms) following stimulus presentation. Improvements in focal PM and nonfocal PM were observed at response delays as brief as 200 ms and 400 ms, respectively. Nonfocal PM accuracy was comparable to focal PM accuracy at delays of 600 ms and 1,600 ms for categorical targets and syllable targets, respectively. Delaying task responses freed the resource-demanding processing operations used on the ongoing task for use on the nonfocal PM task, increasing the probability that the nonfocal PM features of ongoing task stimuli were adequately assessed prior to the ongoing task response.
Supporting strategic processes can improve time-based prospective memory in the laboratory among older adults with HIV disease
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 03-2020
DOI: 10.1037/NEU0000602
Growth curve models in retrospective memory and prospective memory: the relationship between prediction and performance with task experience
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 27-06-2018
Static and Adaptable Automation in Simulated Submarine Track Management
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2014
Abstract: Automation that supports lower order information processing levels can potentially reduce the loss of situation awareness associated with static automation, but remains to be tested. Adaptable automation has promised the benefits of adaptive automation without the associated reorienting costs. In the current study, 38 participants completed a simulated submarine track management task with varying taskload under conditions of no automation, static automation, and adaptable automation (where participants decided when to use automation). Static automation reduced workload and improved performance with no cost to situation awareness (compared to no automation). This suggests that low levels of static automation can support performance under varying taskload, however a stronger test of situation awareness is recommended for future studies. Adaptable automation was used during periods of high taskload but was not utilized fully by participants. Adaptable automation maintained situation awareness and lowered workload but provided minimal performance improvements (compared to no automation).
Situation Awareness Measures for Simulated Submarine Track Management
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 04-08-2015
Abstract: The aim of this study was to examine whether the Situation Present Assessment Method (SPAM) and the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) predict incremental variance in performance on a simulated submarine track management task and to measure the potential disruptive effect of these situation awareness (SA) measures. Submarine track managers use various displays to localize and track contacts detected by own-ship sensors. The measurement of SA is crucial for designing effective submarine display interfaces and training programs. Participants monitored a tactical display and sonar bearing-history display to track the cumulative behaviors of contacts in relationship to own-ship position and landmarks. SPAM (or SAGAT) and the Air Traffic Workload Input Technique (ATWIT) were administered during each scenario, and the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) and Situation Awareness Rating Technique were administered postscenario. SPAM and SAGAT predicted variance in performance after controlling for subjective measures of SA and workload, and SA for past information was a stronger predictor than SA for current/future information. The NASA-TLX predicted performance on some tasks. Only SAGAT predicted variance in performance on all three tasks but marginally increased subjective workload. SPAM, SAGAT, and the NASA-TLX can predict unique variance in submarine track management performance. SAGAT marginally increased subjective workload, but this increase did not lead to any performance decrement. Defense researchers have identified SPAM as an alternative to SAGAT because it would not require field exercises involving submarines to be paused. SPAM was not disruptive, but it is potentially problematic that SPAM did not predict variance in all three performance tasks.
Evidence accumulation modeling of event-based prospective memory
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 21-05-2019
Improving prospective memory with contextual cueing
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-01-2021
Cognitive control processes underlying time-based prospective memory impairment in individuals with high depressive symptomatology
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTPSY.2014.02.010
Abstract: The current study compared time-based prospective memory (PM) for in iduals with high depressive symptomatology (HDS) and low depressive symptomatology (LDS). We examined PM accuracy rate, clock-checking frequency, and decrements in ongoing task performance (i.e., costs to ongoing tasks) associated with an embedded time-based PM task. HDS participants demonstrated numerically lower but statistically comparable clock-checking frequency to LDS participants. However, their PM performance was significantly poorer than that of LDS participants. The pattern of observed costs to ongoing tasks and correlational analyses between ongoing task performance and PM accuracy showed that, relative to LDS participants, HDS participants were restricted in their allocation of attentional resources to support PM. We concluded that although HDS and LDS participants externally controlled their time-based PM task performance (i.e., clock-checking) similarly, the HDS participants lacked the cognitive initiative to allocate attentional resources to internally control PM task performance. Such internal control might reflect time-estimation processes, the resources required to maintain the PM task response intention, and/or the ability to coordinate the PM task response with ongoing task demands. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to have examined time-based PM strategies used by HDS in iduals beyond clock-checking. The data suggest that interventions that encourage intermittent strategic reviews of PM goals may be beneficial for in iduals with high depressive symptomatology.
Future and past autobiographical memory in persons with HIV disease.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 22-04-2021
DOI: 10.1037/NEU0000727
Task importance affects event-based prospective memory performance in adults with HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders and hiv-infected young adults with problematic substance use
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 16-05-2014
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617714000435
Abstract: Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of task importance on event-based prospective memory (PM) in separate s les of adults with HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) and HIV-infected young adults with substance use disorders (SUD). All participants completed three conditions of an ongoing lexical decision task: (1) without PM task requirements (2) with PM task requirements that emphasized the importance of the ongoing task and (3) with PM task requirements that emphasized the importance of the PM task. In both experiments, all HIV+ groups showed the expected increase in response costs to the ongoing task when the PM task’s importance was emphasized. In Experiment 1, in iduals with HAND showed significantly lower PM accuracy as compared to HIV+ subjects without HAND when the importance of the ongoing task was emphasized, but improved significantly and no longer differed from HIV+ subjects without HAND when the PM task was emphasized. A similar pattern of findings emerged in Experiment 2, whereby HIV+ young adults with SUD (especially cannabis) showed significant improvements in PM accuracy when the PM task was emphasized. Findings suggest that both HAND and SUD may increase the amount of cognitive attentional resources that need to be allocated to support PM performance in persons living with HIV infection. ( JINS , 2014, 21 , 1–11)
Investigating the effects of ongoing-task bias on prospective memory
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-04-2020
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) refers to the cognitive processes required to perform a planned action upon encountering a future event. Event-based PM studies engage participants in an ongoing task (e.g., lexical decision-making) with an instruction to make an alternative PM response to certain items (e.g., items containing “tor”). The Prospective Memory Decision Control (PMDC) model, which provides a quantitative process account of ongoing-task and PM decisions, proposes that PM and ongoing-task processes compete in a race to threshold. We use PMDC to test whether, as proposed by the Delay Theory of PM costs, PM can be improved by biasing decision-making against a specific ongoing-task choice, so that the PM process is more likely to win the race. We manipulated bias in a lexical decision task with an accompanying PM intention. In one condition, a bias was induced against deciding items were words, and in another, a bias was induced against deciding items were non-words. The bias manipulation had little effect on PM accuracy but did affect the types of ongoing-task responses made on missed PM trials. PMDC fit the observed data well and verified that the bias manipulation had the intended effect on ongoing-task processes. Furthermore, although simulations from PMDC could produce an improvement in PM accuracy due to ongoing-task bias, this required implausible parameter values. These results illustrate the importance of understanding event-based PM in terms of a comprehensive model of the processes that interact to determine all aspects of task performance.
Detecting a Single Automation Failure: The Impact of Expected (But Not Experienced) Automation Reliability
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 10-08-2021
DOI: 10.1177/00187208211037188
Abstract: Examine the impact of expected automation reliability on trust, workload, task disengagement, nonautomated task performance, and the detection of a single automation failure in simulated air traffic control. Prior research has focused on the impact of experienced automation reliability. However, many operational settings feature automation that is reliable to the extent that operators will seldom experience automation failures. Despite this, operators must remain aware of when automation is at greater risk of failing. Participants performed the task with or without conflict detection/resolution automation. Automation failed to detect/resolve one conflict (i.e., an automation miss). Expected reliability was manipulated via instructions such that the expected level of reliability was (a) constant or variable, and (b) the single automation failure occurred when expected reliability was high or low. Trust in automation increased with time on task prior to the automation failure. Trust was higher when expecting high relative to low reliability. Automation failure detection was improved when the failure occurred under low compared with high expected reliability. Subjective workload decreased with automation, but there was no improvement to nonautomated task performance. Automation increased perceived task disengagement. Both automation reliability expectations and task experience played a role in determining trust. Automation failure detection was improved when the failure occurred at a time it was expected to be more likely. Participants did not effectively allocate any spared capacity to nonautomated tasks. The outcomes are applicable because operators in field settings likely form contextual expectations regarding the reliability of automation.
Exploring the Peak-End Effects in Air Traffic Controllers’ Mental Workload Ratings
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-03-2021
Abstract: This study examined whether professional air traffic controllers (ATCos) were subject to peak-end effects in reporting their mental workload after performing an air traffic control task, and in predicting their mental workload in future scenarios. In affective experience studies, people’s evaluation of a period of experience is strongly influenced by the most intense (peak) point and the endpoint. However, whether the effects exist in mental workload evaluations made by professional operators is still not known. In Study 1, 20 ATCos performed air traffic control scenarios on high-fidelity radar simulators and reported their mental workload. We used a 2 (high peak, low peak) × 2 (high end, low end) within-subject design. In Study 2, another group of 43 ATCos completed a survey asking them to predict their mental workload given the same air traffic control scenarios. In Study 1, ATCos reported higher mental workload after completing the high-peak and the high-end scenarios. In contrast, in Study 2, ATCos predicted the peak workload effect but not the end workload effect when asked to predict their experience in dealing with the same scenarios. Peak and end effects exist in subjective mental workload evaluation, but experts only had meta-cognitive awareness of the peak effect, and not the end effect. Researchers and practitioners that use subjective workload estimates for work design decisions need to be aware of the potential impact of peak and end task demand effects on subjective mental workload ratings provided by expert operators.
Optimizing the balance between task automation and human manual control in simulated submarine track management.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 09-2017
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000126
Abstract: Automation can improve operator performance and reduce workload, but can also degrade operator situation awareness (SA) and the ability to regain manual control. In 3 experiments, we examined the extent to which automation could be designed to benefit performance while ensuring that in iduals maintained SA and could regain manual control. Participants completed a simulated submarine track management task under varying task load. The automation was designed to facilitate information acquisition and analysis, but did not make task decisions. Relative to a condition with no automation, the continuous use of automation improved performance and reduced subjective workload, but degraded SA. Automation that was engaged and disengaged by participants as required (adaptable automation) moderately improved performance and reduced workload relative to no automation, but degraded SA. Automation engaged and disengaged based on task load (adaptive automation) provided no benefit to performance or workload, and degraded SA relative to no automation. Automation never led to significant return-to-manual deficits. However, all types of automation led to degraded performance on a nonautomated task that shared information processing requirements with automated tasks. Given these outcomes, further research is urgently required to establish how to design automation to maximize performance while keeping operators cognitively engaged. (PsycINFO Database Record
Reducing prospective memory error and costs in simulated air traffic control: External aids, extending practice, and removing perceived memory requirements.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 09-2016
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000088
Abstract: In air traffic control (ATC), forgetting to perform deferred actions-prospective memory (PM) errors-can have severe consequences. PM demands can also interfere with ongoing tasks (costs). We examined the extent to which PM errors and costs were reduced in simulated ATC by providing extended practice, or by providing external aids combined with extended practice, or by providing external aids combined with instructions that removed perceived memory requirements. Participants accepted/handed-off aircraft and detected conflicts. For the PM task, participants were required to substitute alternative actions for routine actions when accepting aircraft. In Experiment 1, when no aids were provided, PM errors and costs were not reduced by practice. When aids were provided, costs observed early in practice were eliminated with practice, but residual PM errors remained. Experiment 2 provided more limited practice with aids, but instructions that did not frame the PM task as a "memory" task led to high PM accuracy without costs. Attention-allocation policies that participants set based on expected PM demands were modified as in iduals were increasingly exposed to reliable aids, or were given instructions that removed perceived memory requirements. These findings have implications for the design of aids for in iduals who monitor multi-item dynamic displays. (PsycINFO Database Record
Using Spatial Context to Support Prospective Memory in Simulated Air Traffic Control
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 04-10-2011
Abstract: Objective: The aim was to examine whether prospective memory error and response costs to ongoing tasks in an air traffic control simulation could be reduced by providing spatial context. Background: Prospective memory refers to remem-bering to perform an intended action at an appropriate point in the future. Failures of prospective memory can occur in air traffic control. Method: For this study, three conditions of participants performed an air traffic control task that required them to accept and hand off aircraft and to prevent conflicts. The prospective memory task required participants to remember to press an alternative key rather than the routine key when accepting target aircraft. A red line separated the display into upper and lower regions. Participants in the context condition were told that the prospective memory instruction would apply only to aircraft approaching from one region (upper or lower). Those in the standard condition were not provided this information. In the control condition, participants did not have to perform the prospective memory task. Results: In the context condition, participants made fewer prospective memory errors than did those in the standard condition and made faster acceptance decisions for aircraft approaching from irrelevant compared with relevant regions. Costs to hand-off decision time were also reduced in the context condition. Spatial context provided no benefit to conflict detection. Conclusion: Participants could partially localize their allocation of attentional resources to the prospective memory task to relevant display regions. Application: The findings are potentially applicable to air traffic control, whereby regularities in airspace structure and standard traffic flows allow controllers to anticipate the location of specific air traffic events.
An analysis of relational complexity in an air traffic control conflict detection task
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 15-11-2006
Patterns of Prospective Memory Impairment Among Individuals with Depression: The Influence of Cue Type and Delay Interval
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 07-03-2013
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617713000180
Abstract: The present study investigated the impact of cue type and delay interval on prospective memory performance in depressed, compared to non-depressed, in iduals using a clinically relevant measure, the Memory for Intentions Screening Test. The depressed group demonstrated impaired performance on time-based, but not event-based, prospective memory tasks relative to the nondepressed group. The depressed group also demonstrated impaired prospective memory on tasks with longer delay intervals (15 min), but not on tasks with shorter delay intervals (2 min). These data support theoretical frameworks that posit that depression is associated with deficits in cognitive initiative (i.e., reduced ability to voluntarily direct attention to relevant tasks) and thus that depressed in iduals are susceptible to poor performance on strategically demanding tasks. The results also raise multiple avenues for developing interventions (e.g., implementation intentions) to improve prospective memory performance among in iduals with depression, with potential implications for medication and other treatment adherence. ( JINS , 2013, 19 , 1–5)
Control of access to memory: The use of task interference as a behavioral probe
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2008
Using memory for prior aircraft events to detect conflicts under conditions of proactive air traffic control and with concurrent task requirements.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000085
Abstract: In 2 experiments we examined the impact of memory for prior events on conflict detection in simulated air traffic control under conditions where in iduals proactively controlled aircraft and completed concurrent tasks. In iduals were faster to detect conflicts that had repeatedly been presented during training (positive transfer). Bayesian statistics indicated strong evidence for the null hypothesis that conflict detection was not impaired for events that resembled an aircraft pair that had repeatedly come close to conflicting during training. This is likely because aircraft altitude (the feature manipulated between training and test) was attended to by participants when proactively controlling aircraft. In contrast, a minor change to the relative position of a repeated nonconflicting aircraft pair moderately impaired conflict detection (negative transfer). There was strong evidence for the null hypothesis that positive transfer was not impacted by iding participant attention, which suggests that part of the information retrieved regarding prior aircraft events was perceptual (the new aircraft pair "looked" like a conflict based on familiarity). These findings extend the effects previously reported by Loft, Humphreys, and Neal (2004), answering the recent strong and unanimous calls across the psychological science discipline to formally establish the robustness and generality of previously published effects. (PsycINFO Database Record
Online pharmacy navigation skills are associated with prospective memory in HIV disease
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-11-2020
Uncovering continuous and transient monitoring profiles in event-based prospective memory
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-08-2014
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-014-0700-8
Abstract: The present study implemented response time distribution modeling to better characterize context-specific attention dynamics underlying task interference due to possessing a prospective memory intention. During a three-phase paradigm in which prospective memory cues appeared only in the final phase, prospective memory performance was better when participants were informed at encoding of the context in which cues were to appear than when participants were not informed. Additionally, task interference increased during the third phase when the cue context was previously specified. Ex-Gaussian parameter estimates revealed that task interference during the third phase was due to a greater relative frequency of longer latencies, rather than an overall increase in latencies across all trials, suggesting that participants relied primarily on transient, rather than continuous, monitoring processes to support cue detection. Functionally, variability in transient and continuous monitoring profiles was predictive of prospective memory cue detection. More generally, the results from the present study suggest that ex-Gaussian parameter estimation procedures may provide a fruitful avenue for better understanding how attention is differentially allocated to ongoing tasks, what processes might underlie monitoring behavior, and how this behavior is related to eventual intention fulfillment.
Allowing brief delays in responding improves event-based prospective memory for young adults living with HIV disease
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-08-2014
Control room operators’ cue utilization predicts cognitive resource consumption during regular operational tasks
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 27-08-2019
Integrated responding improves prospective memory accuracy
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-12-2022
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-021-02038-0
Abstract: Prospective memory (PM) supports the planning and execution of future activities, and is particularly important in applied settings. We investigate a new response method that aims to improve PM accuracy by integrating the responses to an occasional PM task and a routine ongoing lexical-decision task. Instead of the most common three-choice method where the PM response replaces the ongoing response, participants were obligated to make explicit PM (present vs. absent) and ongoing (word vs. non-word) classifications on every trial through a four-choice response. Although replacement and obligatory responses were initially similar in PM accuracy, an advantage emerged with practice for the new obligatory method that was not simply due to slower responding associated with making four versus three choices. The nature of the errors differed between methods, with obligatory responding being characterised by fast PM errors and replacement by slower errors, suggesting avenues for further potential improvements in PM accuracy.
Prospective Memory Decision Control
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 20-04-2023
DOI: 10.1037/XLM0001242
The Impact of Information Integration in a Simulation of Future Submarine Command and Control
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 27-09-2021
DOI: 10.1177/00187208211045872
Abstract: Examine the extent to which increasing information integration across displays in a simulated submarine command and control room can reduce operator workload, improve operator situation awareness, and improve team performance. In control rooms, the volume and number of sources of information are increasing, with the potential to overwhelm operator cognitive capacity. It is proposed that by distributing information to maximize relevance to each operator role (increasing information integration), it is possible to not only reduce operator workload but also improve situation awareness and team performance. Sixteen teams of six novice participants were trained to work together to combine data from multiple sensor displays to build a tactical picture of surrounding contacts at sea. The extent that data from one display were available to operators at other displays was manipulated (information integration) between teams. Team performance was assessed as the accuracy of the generated tactical picture. Teams built a more accurate tactical picture, and in idual team members had better situation awareness and lower workload, when provided with high compared with low information integration. A human-centered design approach to integrating information in command and control settings can result in lower workload, and enhanced situation awareness and team performance. The design of modern command and control rooms, in which operators must fuse increasing volumes of complex data from displays, may benefit from higher information integration based on a human-centered design philosophy, and a fundamental understanding of the cognitive work that is carried out by operators.
Using Situation Awareness and Workload to Predict Performance in Submarine Track Management: A Multilevel Approach
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 05-07-2018
Abstract: Examine the extent to which subjective workload and situation awareness (SA) can predict variance in performance at the between- and within-person levels of analysis in a simulated submarine track management task. SA and workload are crucial constructs in human factors that are conceptualized as states that change within in iduals over time. Thus, a change in an in idual’s subjective workload or SA over the course of performing a task should be predictive of their subsequent performance (within-person effects). However, there is little empirical evidence for this. Participants monitored displays to track the behaviors of contacts in relationship to their own ship (Ownship) and landmarks. The Situational Awareness Global Assessment Technique measured SA, and the Air Traffic Workload Input Technique measured subjective workload. When a participant’s subjective workload rating increased, their subsequent performance decreased, but there was no evidence for within-person effects of SA on performance. We replicated prior between-person level effects of SA participants with higher SA performed better than those with lower SA. Change in an in idual’s subjective workload rating (but not SA) was predictive of their subsequent performance. Because an increase in SA should increase the extent to which operators hold the knowledge required to perform subsequent tasks, further research is required to examine SA effects on performance at the within-person level. Adapting automation is more likely to produce optimal outcomes if based on measurement of operator states that predict future task performance, such as workload.
Effect of automation transparency in the management of multiple unmanned vehicles
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2021
Cognitive control and capacity for prospective memory in complex dynamic environments.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2019
DOI: 10.1037/XGE0000599
Abstract: Performing deferred actions in the future relies upon Prospective Memory (PM). Often, PM demands arise in complex dynamic tasks. Not only can PM be challenging in such environments, the processes required for PM may affect the performance of other tasks. To adapt to PM demands in such environments, humans may use a range of strategies, including flexible allocation of cognitive resources and cognitive control mechanisms. We sought to understand such mechanisms by using the Prospective Memory Decision Control (Strickland, Loft, Remington, & Heathcote, 2018) model to provide a comprehensive, quantitative account of dual task performance in a complex dynamic environment (a simulated air traffic control conflict detection task). We found that PM demands encouraged proactive control over ongoing task decisions, but that this control was reduced at high time pressure to facilitate fast responding. We found reactive inhibitory control over ongoing task processes when PM targets were encountered, and that time pressure and PM demand both affect the attentional system, increasing the amount of cognitive resources available. However, as demands exceeded the capacity limit of the cognitive system, resources were reallocated (shared) between the ongoing and PM tasks. As the ongoing task used more resources to compensate for additional time pressure demands, it drained resources that would have otherwise been available for PM task processing. This study provides the first detailed quantitative understanding of how attentional resources and cognitive control mechanisms support PM and ongoing task performance in complex dynamic environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
The long road home from distraction: Investigating the time-course of distraction recovery in driving
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.AAP.2018.12.012
Abstract: Driver distraction is a leading cause of accidents. While there has been significant research examining driver performance during a distraction, there has been less focus on how much time is required to recover performance following a distraction. To address this issue, participants in the current study completed a simulated 40-min drive while being presented with distractions. Distractions were followed by a visual Detection Response Task (DRT) to assess participants' resource availability and potential capacity to respond to hazards, as well as continuous measures of driving performance including their ability to maintain a consistent speed and lane position. We examined recovery for a 40 s period following three types of distraction: cognitive only, cognitive + visual, and cognitive + visual + manual. Since safe driving requires cognitive, visual, and manual resources, we expected recovery to take longer when the distraction involved more of these resources. Consistent with this, each additional level of distraction further slowed DRT response times and increased speed variability during 0-10 s post-distraction. However, DRT accuracy was equally impaired for all conditions during 0-20 s post-distraction, while lane position maintenance from 0 to 10 s post-distraction was only impaired when the distraction included a manual component. In addition, while participants in all three conditions exhibited some degree of post-distraction impairment, only those in the cognitive + visual + manual condition reduced their speed during the time when distracted, suggesting drivers show limited awareness of the potential persistent consequences of distraction.
Inhibitory Cognitive Control Allows Automated Advice to Improve Accuracy While Minimizing Misuse
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 27-09-2021
DOI: 10.1177/09567976211012676
Abstract: Humans increasingly use automated decision aids. However, environmental uncertainty means that automated advice can be incorrect, creating the potential for humans to act on incorrect advice or to disregard correct advice. We present a quantitative model of the cognitive process by which humans use automation when deciding whether aircraft would violate requirements for minimum separation. The model closely fitted the performance of 24 participants, who each made 2,400 conflict-detection decisions (conflict vs. nonconflict), either manually (with no assistance) or with the assistance of 90% reliable automation. When the decision aid was correct, conflict-detection accuracy improved, but when the decision aid was incorrect, accuracy and response time were impaired. The model indicated that participants integrated advice into their decision process by inhibiting evidence accumulation toward the task response that was incongruent with that advice, thereby ensuring that decisions could not be made solely on automated advice without first s ling information from the task environment.
Habitual prospective memory in HIV disease
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 11-2015
DOI: 10.1037/NEU0000180
Investigating the cost to ongoing tasks not associated with prospective memory task requirements
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2014
Managing workload, performance, and situation awareness in aviation systems
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2022
Slow down and remember to remember! A delay theory of prospective memory costs.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 04-2015
DOI: 10.1037/A0038952
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) requires a deferred action to be performed when a target event is encountered in the future. In iduals are often slower to perform a concurrent ongoing task when they have PM task requirements relative to performing the ongoing task in isolation. Theories differ in their detailed interpretations of this PM cost, but all assume that the PM task shares limited-capacity resources with the ongoing task. In what was interpreted as support of this core assumption, diffusion model fits reported by Boywitt and Rummel (2012) and Horn, Bayen, and Smith (2011) indicated that PM demands reduced the rate of accumulation of evidence about ongoing task choices. We revaluate this support by fitting both the diffusion and linear ballistic accumulator (Brown & Heathcote, 2008) models to these same data sets and 2 new data sets better suited to model fitting. There was little effect of PM demands on evidence accumulation rates, but PM demands consistently increased the evidence required for ongoing task response selection (response thresholds). A further analysis of data reported by Lourenço, White, and Maylor (2013) found that participants differentially adjusted their response thresholds to slow responses associated with stimuli potentially containing PM targets. These findings are consistent with a delay theory account of costs, which contends that in iduals slow ongoing task responses to allow more time for PM response selection to occur. Our results call for a fundamental reevaluation of current capacity-sharing theories of PM cost that until now have dominated the PM literature.
The Impact of Uncertain Contact Location on Situation Awareness and Performance in Simulated Submarine Track Management
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 10-07-2016
Abstract: The aim of these studies was to examine the extent to which uncertainty in contact location in submarine track management affected operator situation awareness (SA), workload, and performance and whether operator SA predicted unique variance in performance. We extend prior research by manipulating uncertainty in contact location and by including a s le of expert track managers in a submarine combat system. In Experiment 1, university students completed a track management task. In Experiment 2, expert submariners were embedded in a real submarine combat system. Uncertainty was manipulated and SA was measured using the situation present assessment method. Increased uncertainty led to higher student workload and moderately impaired SA and performance, and SA predicted incremental variance in performance. Uncertainty had no effect on expert SA or the accuracy of the tactical picture compiled. On average, experts took 20 s to accept SA queries (compared with 2.18 s for students). The time taken for experts to accept SA queries, but not their subsequent response to SA queries, was positively associated with their tactical picture accuracy. Uncertainty can negatively impact SA, workload, and performance. Some key findings from the laboratory were replicated using experts, but the fact that experts took on average 20 s to accept SA queries presents a challenge for using SPAM in submarine control rooms. Contact location is uncertain due to the use of passive sonar and hostile deception. It is essential to measure track manager SA in order to inform work design and training.
Prospective memory in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND): The neuropsychological dynamics of time monitoring
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-2013
Event-based prospective memory deficits in individuals with high depressive symptomatology: Problems controlling attentional resources?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 21-05-2014
DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2014.918090
Abstract: Depression has been found to be related to neurocognitive deficits in areas important to successful prospective memory (PM) performance, including executive function, attention, and retrospective memory. However, research specific to depression and PM has produced a mixed pattern of results. The current study further examined the task conditions in which event-based PM deficits may emerge in in iduals with high depressive symptomatology (HDS) relative to in iduals with low depressive symptomatology (LDS) and the capacity of HDS in iduals to allocate attentional resources to event-based PM tasks. Sixty-four participants (32 HDS, 32 LDS) were required to make a PM response when target words were presented during an ongoing lexical decision task. When the importance of the ongoing task was emphasized, response time costs to the ongoing task, and PM accuracy, did not differ between the HDS and LDS groups. This finding is consistent with previous research demonstrating that event-based PM task accuracy is not always impaired by depression, even when the PM task is resource demanding. When the importance of the PM task was emphasized, costs to the ongoing task further increased for both groups, indicating an increased allocation of attentional resources to the PM task. Crucially, while a corresponding improvement in PM accuracy was observed in the LDS group when the importance of the PM task was emphasized, this was not true for the HDS group. The lack of improved PM accuracy in the HDS group compared with the LDS group despite evidence of increased cognitive resources allocated to PM tasks may have been due to inefficiency in the application of the allocated attention, a dimension likely related to executive function difficulties in depression. Qualitatively different resource allocation patterns may underlie PM monitoring in HDS versus LDS in iduals.
Enhancing cue salience improves aspects of naturalistic time-based prospective memory in older adults with HIV disease.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.1037/NEU0000644
Using Past and Present Indicators of Human Workload to Explain Variance in Human Performance
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-06-2021
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-021-01961-6
Abstract: Cognitive workload is assumed to influence performance due to resource competition. However, there is a lack of evidence for a direct relationship between changes in workload within an in idual over time and changes in that in idual's performance. We collected performance data using a multiple object-tracking task in which we measured workload objectively in real-time using a modified detection response task. Using a multi-level Bayesian model controlling for task difficulty and past performance, we found strong evidence that workload both during and preceding a tracking trial was predictive of performance, such that higher workload led to poorer performance. These negative workload-performance relationships were remarkably consistent across in iduals. Importantly, we demonstrate that fluctuations in workload independent from the task demands accounted for significant performance variation. The outcomes have implications for designing real-time adaptive systems to proactively mitigate human performance decrements, but also highlight the pervasive influence of cognitive workload more generally.
The Influence of Memory for Prior Instances on Performance in a Conflict Detection Task.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2004
Enhanced recognition of words previously presented in a task with nonfocal prospective memory requirements
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 31-07-2012
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-012-0303-1
Abstract: Remembering to perform deferred actions when events are encountered in the future is referred to as event-based prospective memory. In iduals can be slower to respond to ongoing tasks when they have prospective memory task requirements. These costs are interpreted as evidence for cognitive control processes allocated to the prospective memory task, but we know little about these processes. In the present article, the recognition of nontargets previously presented in an ongoing task with prospective memory task requirements provided evidence for the differential processing of in idual ongoing task items. Participants performed a lexical decision task, where some participants were required to make an alternative prospective memory response either to a specific word (focal) or to exemplars of a category (nonfocal). Participants were slower to respond to the ongoing task in the nonfocal conditions than in the control condition (costs), regardless of whether or not prospective memory task importance was emphasized. Participants were also slower to respond to the ongoing task in the focal conditions than in the control condition, but only when prospective memory task importance was emphasized. This task was followed by a surprise recognition memory test in which nontarget words from the lexical decision task were intermixed with new words. Focal conditions, but not nonfocal conditions, showed better discrimination on the recognition task, as compared with the control condition. Participants in nonfocal conditions mapped the semantic features of the ongoing task letter strings onto the semantic features of their prospective memory category, and this elaboration in the processing of in idual nontargets increased incidental learning and produced the recognition benefit.
Prospective Memory Performance in Simulated Air Traffic Control
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 20-09-2020
Abstract: To examine the effects of interruptions and retention interval on prospective memory for deferred tasks in simulated air traffic control. In many safety-critical environments, operators need to remember to perform a deferred task, which requires prospective memory. Laboratory experiments suggest that extended prospective memory retention intervals, and interruptions in those retention intervals, could impair prospective memory performance. Participants managed a simulated air traffic control sector. Participants were sometimes instructed to perform a deferred handoff task, requiring them to deviate from a routine procedure. We manipulated whether an interruption occurred during the prospective memory retention interval or not, the length of the retention interval (37–117 s), and the temporal proximity of the interruption to deferred task encoding and execution. We also measured performance on ongoing tasks. Increasing retention intervals (37–117 s) decreased the probability of remembering to perform the deferred task. Costs to ongoing conflict detection accuracy and routine handoff speed were observed when a prospective memory intention had to be maintained. Interruptions did not affect in iduals’ speed or accuracy on the deferred task. Longer retention intervals increase risk of prospective memory error and of ongoing task performance being impaired by cognitive load however, prospective memory can be robust to effects of interruptions when the task environment provides cuing and offloading. To support operators in performing complex and dynamic tasks, prospective memory demands should be reduced, and the retention interval of deferred tasks should be kept as short as possible.
The Perception of Automation Reliability and Acceptance of Automated Advice
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-01-2022
DOI: 10.1177/00187208211062985
Abstract: Examine (1) the extent to which humans can accurately estimate automation reliability and calibrate to changes in reliability, and how this is impacted by the recent accuracy of automation and (2) factors that impact the acceptance of automated advice, including true automation reliability, reliability perception, and the difference between an operator’s perception of automation reliability and perception of their own reliability. Existing evidence suggests humans can adapt to changes in automation reliability but generally underestimate reliability. Cognitive science indicates that humans heavily weight evidence from more recent experiences. Participants monitored the behavior of maritime vessels (contacts) in order to classify them, and then received advice from automation regarding classification. Participants were assigned to either an initially high (90%) or low (60%) automation reliability condition. After some time, reliability switched to 75% in both conditions. Participants initially underestimated automation reliability. After the change in true reliability, estimates in both conditions moved towards the common true reliability, but did not reach it. There were recency effects, with lower future reliability estimates immediately following incorrect automation advice. With lower initial reliability, automation acceptance rates tracked true reliability more closely than perceived reliability. A positive difference between participant assessments of the reliability of automation and their own reliability predicted greater automation acceptance. Humans underestimate the reliability of automation, and we have demonstrated several critical factors that impact the perception of automation reliability and automation use. The findings have potential implications for training and adaptive human-automation teaming.
Building a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive drivers of performance under pressure: An international multi-panel Delphi study
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 18-01-2023
DOI: 10.3389/FPSYG.2022.1017675
Abstract: The ability to perform optimally under pressure is critical across many occupations, including the military, first responders, and competitive sport. Despite recognition that such performance depends on a range of cognitive factors, how common these factors are across performance domains remains unclear. The current study sought to integrate existing knowledge in the performance field in the form of a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie performance under pressure. International experts were recruited from four performance domains [(i) Defense (ii) Competitive Sport (iii) Civilian High-stakes and (iv) Performance Neuroscience]. Experts rated constructs from the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework (and several expert-suggested constructs) across successive rounds, until all constructs reached consensus for inclusion or were eliminated. Finally, included constructs were ranked for their relative importance. Sixty-eight experts completed the first Delphi round, with 94% of experts retained by the end of the Delphi process. The following 10 constructs reached consensus across all four panels (in order of overall ranking): (1) Attention (2) Cognitive Control—Performance Monitoring (3) Arousal and Regulatory Systems—Arousal (4) Cognitive Control—Goal Selection, Updating, Representation, and Maintenance (5) Cognitive Control—Response Selection and Inhibition/Suppression (6) Working memory—Flexible Updating (7) Working memory—Active Maintenance (8) Perception and Understanding of Self—Self-knowledge (9) Working memory—Interference Control, and (10) Expert-suggested—Shifting. Our results identify a set of transdisciplinary neuroscience-informed constructs, validated through expert consensus. This expert consensus is critical to standardizing cognitive assessment and informing mechanism-targeted interventions in the broader field of human performance optimization.
Applying Psychological Science to Examine Prospective Memory in Simulated Air Traffic Control
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 10-2014
Abstract: Failures to remember to perform deferred task actions in work settings such as air traffic control can have serious consequences. Most research examining the cognitive mechanisms underlying prospective memory has used simple, static tasks, which may make it difficult to generalize results to work settings. I describe a body of research that has applied theory and methods from the basic prospective-memory and attention-capture literatures to simulations of air traffic control. These theories and methods can be used to anticipate many findings, such as the finding that prospective-memory demands incur performance costs in ongoing air traffic control tasks, and that prospective-memory error and costs to ongoing air traffic control tasks can be reduced by the use of spatial context or prospective-memory aids. Research in laboratory settings that simulates work contexts such as air traffic control can both establish the utility of psychological theory and produce application-relevant information.
Reducing the Costs of Automation Failure by Providing Voluntary Automation Checking Tools
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 27-07-2023
DOI: 10.1177/00187208231190980
Abstract: We investigated the extent to which a voluntary-use range and bearing line (RBL) tool improves return-to-manual performance when supervising high-degree conflict detection automation in simulated air traffic control. High-degree automation typically benefits routine performance and reduces workload, but can degrade return-to-manual performance if automation fails. We reasoned that providing a voluntary checking tool (RBL) would support automation failure detection, but also that automation induced complacency could extend to nonoptimal use of such tools. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions, where conflict detection was either performed: manually, with RBLs available to use (Manual + RBL), automatically with RBLs (Auto + RBL), or automatically without RBLs (Auto). Voluntary-use RBLs allowed participants to reliably check aircraft conflict status. Automation failed once. RBLs improved automation failure detection – with participants intervening faster and making fewer false alarms when provided RBLs compared to not (Auto + RBL vs Auto). However, a cost of high-degree automation remained, with participants slower to intervene to the automation failure than to an identical manual conflict event (Auto + RBL vs Manual + RBL). There was no difference in RBL engagement time between Auto + RBL and Manual + RBL conditions, suggesting participants noticed the conflict event at the same time. The cost of automation may have arisen from participants’ reconciling which information to trust: the automation (which indicated no conflict and had been perfectly reliable prior to failing) or the RBL (which indicated a conflict). Providing a mechanism for checking the validity of high-degree automation may facilitate human supervision of automation.
The Chronic Detrimental Impact of Interruptions in a Simulated Submarine Track Management Task
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 27-08-2015
Abstract: The objective of this article is to examine the extent to which interruptions negatively impact situation awareness and long-term performance in a submarine track management task where pre- and postinterruption display scenes remained essentially identical. Interruptions in command and control task environments can degrade performance well beyond the first postinterruption action typically measured for sequential static tasks, because in iduals need to recover their situation awareness for multiple unfolding display events. Participants in the current study returned to an unchanged display scene following interruption and therefore could be more immune to such long-term performance deficits. The task required participants to monitor a display to detect contact heading changes and to make enemy engagement decisions. Situation awareness (Situation Present Assessment Method) and subjective workload (NASA–Task Load Index) were measured. The interruption replaced the display for 20 s with a blank screen, during which participants completed a classification task. Situation awareness after returning from interruption was degraded. Participants were slower to make correct engagement decisions and slower and less accurate in detecting heading changes, despite these task decisions being made at least 40 s following the interruption. Interruptions negatively impacted situation awareness and long-term performance because participants needed to redetermine the location and spatial relationship between the displayed contacts when returning from interruption, either because their situation awareness for the preinterruption scene decayed or because they did not encode the preinterruption scene. Interruption in work contexts such as submarines is unavoidable, and further understanding of how operators are affected is required to improve work design and training.
Cue utilization differentiates resource allocation during sustained attention simulated rail control tasks.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 09-2019
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000204
Abstract: This study was designed to examine whether cue utilization differentiates performance and resource allocation during simulated rail control tasks that contain implicit patterns of train movement. Two experiments were conducted, the first of which involved the completion of a 30-min rail control simulation that required participants to reroute trains either infrequently (monitoring task) or periodically (process control task). In the monitoring condition, participants with lower cue utilization recorded a greater increase in response latency over time. However, in the process control condition, cue utilization failed to differentiate performance. In the second experiment, the duration of the rail control task was increased, and measures of participant fixation rates and cerebral blood flow were taken. Participants with higher cue utilization demonstrated greater decreases in fixation rates, smaller changes in cerebral oxygenation in the prefrontal cortex, and smaller increases in response latencies, compared with participants with lower cue utilization. The results of the study provide support for the assertion that a relatively greater capacity for cue utilization is associated with the allocation of fewer cognitive resources during sustained attention tasks that embody an implicit pattern of activity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
The Difficulty to Break a Relational Complexity Network Can Predict Air Traffic Controllers’ Mental Workload and Performance in Conflict Resolution
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 16-10-2019
Abstract: To test the network disentangling model for explaining air traffic controllers’ (ATCos) conflict resolution performance. The network rigidity index (NRI), and the steps to break the relational complexity network following a central-available-node-first rule, was hypothesized to explain the overall task demand, whereas marginal-effort-decrease rule was expected to explain the actual operational outcome. Understanding the conflict resolution process of ATCos is important for aviation safety and efficiency. However, linear models are insufficient. We proposed a new model that ATCos behavior can be largely considered as a process to break the relational complexity network, in which nodes represent the aircraft while links represent the cognitive complexity to understand the aircraft dyad relationship. Twenty-one professional ATCos completed 27 conflict resolution scenarios that varied in the NRI and other control variables. Multilevel regression analyses were performed to understand the influence of the NRI on the number of interventions, mental workload, and unresolved rate. A cross-validation was performed to evaluate the predictive power of the model. NRI influenced ATCos intervention number in a curvilinear manner, which further leads to ATCo’s mental workload. The deviance between the number of interventions and the NRI was strongly linked with unresolved rate. Cross-validation suggests that the models predictions are robust. The network disentangling model provides a useful theory-driven way to explain controllers’ conflict resolution workload and other important performance outcomes such as intervention probability. The proposed model can potentially be used for workload management, sector design, and intelligent decision support tool development.
The Benefits and Costs of Low and High Degree of Automation
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 19-08-2020
Abstract: The objective of this study is to examine the effects of low and high degree of automation (DOA) on performance, subjective workload, situation awareness (SA), and return-to-manual control in simulated submarine track management. Theory and meta-analytic evidence suggest that as DOA increases, operator performance improves and workload decreases, but SA and return-to-manual control declines. Research also suggests that operators have particular difficulty regaining manual control if automation provides incorrect advice. Undergraduate student participants completed a submarine track management task that required them to track the position and behavior of contacts. Low DOA supported information acquisition and analysis, whereas high DOA recommended decisions. At a late stage in the task, automation was either unexpectedly removed or provided incorrect advice. Relative to no automation, low DOA moderately benefited performance but impaired SA and non-automated task performance. Relative to no automation and low DOA, high DOA benefited performance and lowered workload. High DOA did impair non-automated task performance compared with no automation, but this was equivalent to low DOA. Participants were able to return-to-manual control when they knew low or high DOA was disengaged, or when high DOA provided incorrect advice. High DOA improved performance and lowered workload, at no additional cost to SA or return-to-manual performance when compared with low DOA. Designers should consider the likely level of uncertainty in the environment and the consequences of return-to-manual deficits before implementing low or high DOA.
Accumulating evidence about what prospective memory costs actually reveal.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 10-2017
DOI: 10.1037/XLM0000400
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) tasks require participants to substitute an atypical PM response for an ongoing task response when presented with PM targets. Responses to ongoing tasks are often slower with the addition of PM demands ("PM costs"). Prominent PM theories attribute costs to capacity-sharing between the ongoing and PM tasks, which reduces the rate of processing of the ongoing task. We modeled PM costs using the Linear Ballistic Accumulator and the Diffusion Decision Model in a lexical-decision task with nonfocal PM targets defined by semantic categories. Previous decision modeling, which attributed costs to changes in caution rather than rate of processing (Heathcote et al., 2015 Horn & Bayen, 2015), could be criticized on the grounds that the PM tasks included did not sufficiently promote capacity-sharing. Our semantic PM task was potentially more dependent on lexical decision resources than previous tasks (Marsh, Hicks, & Cook, 2005), yet costs were again driven by changes in threshold and not by changes in processing speed (drift rate). Costs resulting from a single target focal PM task were also driven by threshold changes. The increased thresholds underlying nonfocal and focal costs were larger for word trials than nonword trials. As PM targets were always words, this suggests that threshold increases are used to extend the time available for retrieval on PM trials. Under nonfocal conditions, but not focal conditions, the nonword threshold also increased. Thus, it seems that only nonfocal instructions cause a global threshold increase because of greater perceived task complexity. (PsycINFO Database Record
The development of a general associative learning account of skill acquisition in a relative arrival-time judgment task.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2007
DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.33.4.938
Abstract: Current theory assumes that in iduals only use information from the immediate environment to perform relative arrival-time judgment tasks. This article presents a theoretical analysis of the memory requirements of this task. The authors present an analysis of the inputs to the memory system and the processes that map those inputs onto outputs. The analysis generates a set of predictions regarding the specificity of transfer and the role of context during learning. In 3 experiments, participants decided whether pairs of aircraft would violate a minimum separation standard or pass each other safely. Participants were presented with pairs of aircraft in which properties of the pair varied along 3 structural and 3 surface dimensions. Contexts were defined by the co-occurrence of specific values along stimulus dimensions and the use of a neutral label. The results suggest that transfer was limited by the dimensions that were varied in training and the context in which those dimensions were varied. The discussion focuses on the problems that complex tasks like relative judgment pose for associative learning mechanisms and the development of precise models of cognition.
Prospective memory in safety-critical work contexts
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 15-03-2021
Transparent Automated Advice to Mitigate the Impact of Variation in Automation Reliability
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 27-08-2023
DOI: 10.1177/00187208231196738
Abstract: To examine the extent to which increased automation transparency can mitigate the potential negative effects of low and high automation reliability on disuse and misuse of automated advice, and perceived trust in automation. Automated decision aids that vary in the reliability of their advice are increasingly used in workplaces. Low-reliability automation can increase disuse of automated advice, while high-reliability automation can increase misuse. These effects could be reduced if the rationale underlying automated advice is made more transparent. Participants selected the optimal UV to complete missions. The Recommender (automated decision aid) assisted participants by providing advice however, it was not always reliable. Participants determined whether the Recommender provided accurate information and whether to accept or reject advice. The level of automation transparency (medium, high) and reliability (low: 65%, high: 90%) were manipulated between-subjects. With high- compared to low-reliability automation, participants made more accurate (correctly accepted advice and identified whether information was accurate/inaccurate) and faster decisions, and reported increased trust in automation. Increased transparency led to more accurate and faster decisions, lower subjective workload, and higher usability ratings. It also eliminated the increased automation disuse associated with low-reliability automation. However, transparency did not mitigate the misuse associated with high-reliability automation. Transparency protected against low-reliability automation disuse, but not against the increased misuse potentially associated with the reduced monitoring and verification of high-reliability automation. These outcomes can inform the design of transparent automation to improve human-automation teaming under conditions of varied automation reliability.
Lowering thresholds for speed limit enforcement impairs peripheral object detection and increases driver subjective workload
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.AAP.2016.09.029
Abstract: Speed enforcement reduces incidences of speeding, thus reducing traffic accidents. Accordingly, it has been argued that stricter speed enforcement thresholds could further improve road safety. Effective speed monitoring however requires driver attention and effort, and human information-processing capacity is limited. Emphasizing speed monitoring may therefore reduce resource availability for other aspects of safe vehicle operation. We investigated whether lowering enforcement thresholds in a simulator setting would introduce further competition for limited cognitive and visual resources. Eighty-four young adult participants drove under conditions where they could be fined for travelling 1, 6, or 11km/h over a 50km/h speed-limit. Stricter speed enforcement led to greater subjective workload and significant decrements in peripheral object detection. These data indicate that the benefits of reduced speeding with stricter enforcement may be at least partially offset by greater mental demands on drivers, reducing their responses to safety-critical stimuli on the road. It is likely these results under-estimate the impact of stricter speed enforcement on real-world drivers who experience significantly greater pressures to drive at or above the speed limit.
Eye movements provide insights into the conscious use of context in prospective memory
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.CONCOG.2017.04.003
Abstract: Prior research examining the impact of context on prospective memory (PM) has produced mixed results. Our study aimed to determine whether providing progressive context information could increase PM accuracy and reduce costs to ongoing tasks. Seventy-two participants made ongoing true/false judgements for simple sentences while maintaining a PM intention to respond differently to four memorised words. The context condition were informed of the trial numbers where PM targets could appear, and eye-tracking recorded trial number fixation frequency. The context condition showed reduced costs during irrelevant contexts, increased costs during relevant contexts, and had better PM accuracy compared to a standard condition that was not provided with context. The context condition also made an increasing number of trial number fixations leading up to relevant contexts, indicating the conscious use of context. Furthermore, this trial number checking was beneficial to PM, with participants who checked more frequently having better PM accuracy.
Goal orientations and performance: Differential relationships across levels of analysis and as a function of task demands
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2009
DOI: 10.1037/A0015044
Abstract: Goal orientation and self-regulation theories were integrated to develop a multilevel framework aimed at addressing controversies regarding the magnitude and direction of goal orientation effects on performance. In Study 1, goal orientations were measured repeatedly whilst in iduals performed an air traffic control task. In Study 2, goal orientations and exam performance were measured across 3 time points while undergraduates completed a course. Mastery-approach orientation was positively related to performance at the intrain idual level, but not at the interin idual level, and its effect was not moderated by task demands. Performance-approach positively predicted performance at the interin idual level, and at the intrain idual level, the direction of its effect switched as a function of task demands. Performance-avoid negatively predicted performance at the interin idual level but did not emerge as an intrain idual predictor. Mastery-avoid did not relate to performance at either level of analysis. This consistent pattern across 2 studies suggests that levels of analysis and task demands can determine the magnitude and direction of goal orientation effects on performance and highlights avenues for theory development.
Prospective memory and spontaneous compensatory mnemonic strategy use in the laboratory and daily life in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-10-2020
The effect of the degree of static automation in simulated submarine track management
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2018
Abstract: Automation that supports our workplaces is intended to relieve the requirement for humans to control tasks, as a way to reduce operator workload and maximize system capacity. Researchers have long recognized the potential costs associated with automation. These costs include the loss of an operator’s understanding of a task and an inability to anticipate future task events ( situation awareness SA Endsley, 1995) that can occur due to automation induced complacency (Parasuraman, Molloy, & Singh, 1993), and the subsequent lack of ability to regain manual control after automation (Kaber & Endsley, 2004). These costs to automation are more likely to occur when the degree of automation (DOA) increases. DOA has been defined based on whether automation is doing more or less ‘work’ ( levels of automation Sheridan & Verplank, 1978), and at which of the four stages of human information processing the automation is directed information acquisition, information analysis, decision selection, and action implementation ( stages of automation Parasuraman, Sheridan, & Wickens, 2000). As the DOA increases, performance and workload tend to improve. However, SA and return-to-manual performance can decline. Recent research by Chen, Huf, Visser, and Loft (2017) reported that a low DOA had minimal benefits to performance and workload, and also impaired SA and non-automated task performance compared to a manual control condition in a simulated submarine track management task. However, the low DOA did not lead to any return-to-manual deficits when automation was unexpectedly removed. The current study compared the effects of low and high DOA on operator performance, workload, SA, non-automated task performance, and return-to-manual performance in submarine track management. Participants ( N= 122) monitored a tactical display that presented the location and heading of contacts in relation to the Ownship and landmarks, and a ‘waterfall’ display that presented sonar bearings of contacts and how those bearings change with time. Participants performed three tasks: classification, closest point of approach (CPA), and e. The classification task involved classifying contacts depending on how long they had spent within display regions. The CPA task involved monitoring changes in contact heading to determine their closest point of approach to the Ownship. The e task involved integrating contact location and heading information to determine when the submarine could safely e. Automated assistance was provided for the classification and CPA tasks, but not for the e task. The low DOA condition received information acquisition and analysis support (stages 1 and 2), whereas the high DOA received decision selection support (stage 3). In a mixed design, the between-subjects factor was condition (no automation, high DOA, low DOA) and the within-subjects factor was automation state (routine, automation removal). Participants completed three track management scenarios, and during the last scenario the automation was unexpectedly removed. Firstly, we predicted that a high DOA would have larger benefits to performance and workload compared to a low DOA, but that these benefits might be accompanied by costs to SA, non-automated task performance, and return-to-manual performance. Secondly, we predicted that a low DOA would show minimal benefits to performance and workload, significant costs to SA and non-automated task performance, and no effect on return-to-manual performance when compared to no automation, thus replicating the findings of Chen et al. (2017). The results from this study indicated that relative to the low DOA condition, participants provided with high DOA support had better performance and lower workload, without any further costs to SA, non-automated task performance, or return-to-manual performance. Furthermore, relative to no automation, participants provided with low DOA support only had minor benefits to performance (replicating Chen et al., 2017) and no benefits to workload, and significant costs to SA and non-automated task performance. In summary, the high DOA produced larger benefits to performance and workload than the low DOA, without increasing costs. In light of these results, the automated system that recommended decisions was effectively utilized by operators in the current context, and appeared to be superior to the automated system that supported information acquisition and analysis.
Lower prospective memory is associated with higher neurocognitive dispersion in two samples of people with HIV: A conceptual replication study
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 08-02-2023
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617722000698
Abstract: People living with HIV (PLWH) often experience deficits in the strategic/executive aspects of prospective memory (PM) that can interfere with instrumental activities of daily living. This study used a conceptual replication design to determine whether cognitive intrain idual variability, as measured by dispersion (IIV-dispersion), contributes to PM performance and symptoms among PLWH. Study 1 included 367 PLWH who completed a comprehensive clinical neuropsychological test battery, the Memory for Intentions Test (MIsT), and the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ). Study 2 included 79 older PLWH who completed the Cogstate cognitive battery, the Cambridge Prospective Memory Test (CAMPROMPT), an experimental measure of time-based PM, and the PRMQ. In both studies, a mean-adjusted coefficient of variation was derived to measure IIV-dispersion using normative T -scores from the cognitive battery. Higher IIV-dispersion was significantly associated with lower time-based PM performance at small-to-medium effect sizes in both studies (mean r s = −0.30). The relationship between IIV-dispersion and event-based PM performance was comparably small in magnitude in both studies ( r s = −0.19, −0.20), but it was only statistically significant in Study 1. IIV-dispersion showed very small, nonsignificant relationships with self-reported PM symptoms in both s les ( r s 0.10). Extending prior work in healthy adults, these findings suggest that variability in performance across a cognitive battery contributes to laboratory-based PM accuracy, but not perceived PM symptoms, among PLWH. Future studies might examine whether daily fluctuations in cognition or other aspects of IIV (e.g., inconsistency) play a role in PM failures in everyday life.
Using the situation present assessment method to measure situation awareness in simulated submarine track management
Publisher: Inderscience Publishers
Date: 2013
Sleep disruption explains age-related prospective memory deficits: implications for cognitive aging and intervention
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 30-08-2019
DOI: 10.1080/13825585.2018.1513449
Abstract: The high prevalence of sleep disruption among older adults may have implications for cognitive aging, particularly for higher-order aspects of cognition. One domain where sleep disruption may contribute to age-related deficits is prospective memory-the ability to remember to perform deferred actions at the appropriate time in the future. Community-dwelling older adults (55-93 years, N = 133) undertook assessment of sleep using actigraphy and participated in a laboratory-based prospective memory task. After controlling for education, sleep disruption (longer awakenings) was associated with poorer prospective memory. Additionally, longer awakenings mediated the relationship between older age and poorer prospective memory. Other metrics of sleep disruption, including sleep efficiency and wake after sleep onset, were not related to prospective memory, suggesting that examining the features of in idual wake episodes rather than total wake time may help clarify relationships between sleep and cognition. The mediating role of awakening length was partially a function of greater depression and poorer executive function (shifting) but not retrospective memory. This study is among the first to examine the association between objectively measured sleep and prospective memory in older adults. Furthermore, this study is novel in suggesting sleep disruption might contribute to age-related prospective memory deficits perhaps, with implications for cognitive aging more broadly. Our results suggest that there may be opportunities to prevent prospective memory decline by treating sleep problems.
An investigation into the resource requirements of event-based prospective memory
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-2007
DOI: 10.3758/BF03193447
Abstract: The multiprocess view proposes that both strategic and automatic processes can support prospective memory. In three experiments, we embedded a prospective memory task in a lexical decision task cues were either highly associated with response words or had no relation. Analyses of RTs on ongoing task trials indicated that (1) prospective memory was more dependent on the allocation of resources immediately prior to cue presentation under conditions of low association in comparison with high association and (2) processes engaged on cue trials were more resource demanding under conditions of low association in comparison with high association. These data support the claim of the multiprocess view that prospective memory can be more resource demanding under some task conditions in comparison with others. However, the prospective memory performance data were less supportive, with declines in prospective memory due to task-importance and cue-frequency manipulations comparable across the low- and high-association conditions. Taken together, these results have implications for two prominent theories of prospective memory.
Fitting an ex-Gaussian function to examine costs in event-based prospective memory: Evidence for a continuous monitoring profile
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTPSY.2014.08.010
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) tasks require in iduals to remember to perform a deferred action when a target event occurs. PM task requirements can slow ongoing task responses on non-target trials ('costs') under conditions where the defining features of targets are non-focal to the ongoing task, which is indicative that in iduals have allocated some form of cognitive control process to the PM task. Recent fits of the ex-Gaussian mathematical function to non-target trial response distributions by prior studies have indicated that these control processes are transiently allocated. In the current paper, fits of the ex-Gaussian function to data reported by Loft and Humphreys (2012) demonstrate a shift in the entire response time distribution (μ) and an increase in skew (τ) for a non-focal PM condition required to remember to make a PM response if presented with category exemplars, compared to a control condition. This change in μ is indicative of a more continuous PM monitoring profile than that reported by prior studies. In addition, within-subject variability in μ was reliably correlated with PM accuracy, suggesting that these control processes allocated on a regular basis were functional to PM accuracy. In contrast, when the ongoing task directed attention to the defining features of targets (focal PM) there was a trend level increase in μ, but the within-subject variability in μ was not correlated with PM accuracy, consistent with the theoretical premise that focal PM tasks are not as dependent on cognitive control as non-focal PM tasks.
Is task interference in event-based prospective memory dependent on cue presentation?
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 2008
DOI: 10.3758/MC.36.1.139
Abstract: Whether having an intention produces a performance cost to ongoing activities (task interference) is central to theoretical claims regarding the mechanisms underlying cue detection in event-based prospective memory. Recent evidence suggests that task interference primarily reflects an attention allocation policy stored in memory when intentions are encoded. The present study examined whether these policies can change with ongoing task experience. In Experiment 1, task interference was more greatly reduced when expected cues were not presented than when they were. Experiment 2 replicated this effect when the importance of the prospective memory task was emphasized. In Experiment 3, task interference decreased with time, and this decrease was greater when expected cues were not presented than when they were. Cue presentation is crucial to maintenance of attention allocation policies established by task instructions. This is the first article to demonstrate changes in task interference with ongoing task experience without forewarning in iduals of the relevance of upcoming ongoing task trials to intentions.
A theory and model of conflict detection in air traffic control: Incorporating environmental constraints.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2009
DOI: 10.1037/A0016118
Abstract: A performance theory for conflict detection in air traffic control is presented that specifies how controllers adapt decisions to compensate for environmental constraints. This theory is then used as a framework for a model that can fit controller intervention decisions. The performance theory proposes that controllers apply safety margins to ensure separation between aircraft. These safety margins are formed through experience and reflect the biasing of decisions to favor safety over accuracy, as well as expectations regarding uncertainty in aircraft trajectory. In 2 experiments, controllers indicated whether they would intervene to ensure separation between pairs of aircraft. The model closely predicted the probability of controller intervention across the geometry of problems and as a function of controller experience. When controller safety margins were manipulated via task instructions, the parameters of the model changed in the predicted direction. The strength of the model over existing and alternative models is that it better captures the uncertainty and decision biases involved in the process of conflict detection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).
Do concurrent task demands impact the benefit of automation transparency?
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2023
Return-to-Manual Performance can be Predicted Before Automation Fails
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 20-12-2022
DOI: 10.1177/00187208221147105
Abstract: This study aimed to examine operator state variables (workload, fatigue, and trust in automation) that may predict return-to-manual (RTM) performance when automation fails in simulated air traffic control. Prior research has largely focused on triggering adaptive automation based on reactive indicators of performance degradation or operator strain. A more direct and effective approach may be to proactively engage/disengage automation based on predicted operator RTM performance (conflict detection accuracy and response time), which requires analyses of within-person effects. Participants accepted and handed-off aircraft from their sector and were assisted by imperfect conflict detection/resolution automation. To avoid aircraft conflicts, participants were required to intervene when automation failed to detect a conflict. Participants periodically rated their workload, fatigue and trust in automation. For participants with the same or higher average trust than the s le average, an increase in their trust (relative to their own average) slowed their subsequent RTM response time. For participants with lower average fatigue than the s le average, an increase in their fatigue (relative to own average) improved their subsequent RTM response time. There was no effect of workload on RTM performance. RTM performance degraded as trust in automation increased relative to participants’ own average, but only for in iduals with average or high levels of trust. Study outcomes indicate a potential for future adaptive automation systems to detect vulnerable operator states in order to predict subsequent RTM performance decrements.
Internalizing versus externalizing control: Different ways to perform a time-based prospective memory task
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2014
DOI: 10.1037/A0035786
Abstract: Time-based prospective memory (PM) refers to performing intended actions at a future time. Participants with time-based PM tasks can be slower to perform ongoing tasks (costs) than participants without PM tasks because internal control is required to maintain the PM intention or to make prospective-timing estimates. However, external control can be gained, and internal control minimized, by checking clocks or by using PM reminders. We present 3 experiments that examined how in iduals externalize and internalize control of time-based PM tasks. The control condition performed a lexical decision task only, whereas the PM conditions were additionally required to make a time-based PM response after 11 min. We manipulated whether participants received a reminder, and whether clock checking was discouraged. In Experiments 1 and 3, no cost was found under standard clock check conditions. In contrast, when participants were discouraged from clock checking (Experiments 2 and 3), significant costs were found, accompanied by a decrease in clock checking. PM reminders prompted participants to check the clock, and improved PM accuracy if those reminders were expected. However, there was no evidence that participants could localize the internal or external control of the PM task to after the presentation of an expected reminder (Experiment 3). We conclude that much of the need for internal control can be transferred to the external world by performing a well-practiced task such as clock checking, which reminds participants of the PM task and reduces the internal control required to maintain the intention to perform the PM task.
The impact of digital image configuration on submarine periscope operator workload, situation awareness, meta-awareness and performance
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2022
Improving Prospective Memory Performance in Community-dwelling Older Adults
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 31-01-2021
Agent Transparency: A Review of Current Theory and Evidence
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Date: 06-2020
Human behavioral response to fluctuating automation reliability
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.APERGO.2022.103835
Abstract: Human perception of automation reliability and automation acceptance behaviours are key to effective human-automation teaming. This study examined factors that impact perceptions of automation reliability over time and the acceptance of automated advice. Participants completed a maritime vessel classification task in which they classified vessels (contacts) with the assistance of automation. In Experiment 1 automation reliability successively switched from high to low (or vice versa). In Experiment 2 automation reliability decreased by varying magnitudes before returning to high. Participants did not initially calibrate to true reliability and experiencing low automation reliability reduced future reliability estimates when experiencing subsequent high reliability. Automation acceptance was predicted by positive differences between participant perception of automation reliability and confidence in their own manual classification reliability. Experiencing low automation reliability caused perceptions of reliability and automation acceptance rates to erge. These findings have important implications for training and adaptive human-automation teaming in complex work environments.
Remembering to execute deferred tasks in simulated air traffic control: The impact of interruptions.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 09-2018
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000171
Abstract: Air traffic controllers can sometimes forget to complete deferred tasks, with safety implications. In two experiments, we examined how the presence and type of interruptions influenced the probability and speed at which in iduals remembered to perform deferred tasks in simulated air traffic control (ATC). Participants were required to accept/handoff aircraft, detect aircraft conflicts, and perform two deferred tasks: a deferred conflict task that required remembering to resolve a conflict in the future and a deferred handoff task that required substituting an alternative aircraft handoff action in place of routine handoff action. Relative to no interruption, a blank display interruption slowed deferred conflict resumption, but this effect was not augmented by a cognitively demanding n-back task or a secondary ATC task interruption. However, the ATC task interruption increased the probability of failing to resume the deferred conflict relative to the blank interruption. An ex-Gaussian model of resumption times revealed that these resumption failures likely reflected true forgetting of the deferred task. Deferred handoff task performance was unaffected by interruptions. These findings suggest that remembering to resume a deferred task in simulated ATC depended on frequent interaction with situational cues on the display and that in iduals were particularly susceptible to interference-based forgetting. (PsycINFO Database Record
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