Handbook of Perception and Human Performance. Volume 2. Cognitive Processes and Performance
01 Jan 1994-
TL;DR: This chapter has attempted to bring together the laboratory and field-based techniques currently in use to assess workload, particularly as they are used with computer models of whole missions or operations.
Abstract: : This chapter has attempted to bring together the laboratory and field-based techniques currently in use to assess workload. No doubt, many specific procedures of interest to particular applications have been left out of this survey. In no sense is this meant to summarily exclude these from any list of valid workload assessment techniques. In fact, several of these are acknowledged to show considerable promise (e.g., occlusion techniques and respiratory rhythms). They are not discussed here partly because of space limitations and partly because a judgment had to be made concerning the practicality and general applicability of each measure. It is hoped that the inclusion of general references will serve to point the interested reader to the individual techniques not included here. Similarly, a class of techniques frequently used to assess workload was deliberately excluded from this chapter. Task analytic methods, particularly as they are used with computer models of whole missions or operations (see e.g., Lane, Strieb, Glenn, & Wherry, 1981) constitute an important tool for work- load investigations during design and other stages of aircraft and systems development. These techniques, however, are primarily off-line analyses that utilize the kind of laboratory and field data gathered with the techniques such as those described in this chapter. They provide an overall systems answer to the workload question and as such deserve separate treatment from highly specific workload measures. The interested reader is referred to Chubb (1981), Geer (1981), Lane et al. (1981), Parks (1979), and Wherry (1984) for reviews and introductions to some of the modeling techniques used in these areas. swr
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TL;DR: The results of a series of search experiments are interpreted as evidence that focused attention to single items or to groups is required to reduce background activity when the Weber fraction distinguishing the pooled feature activity with displayscontaining a target and with displays containing only distractors is too small to allow reliable discrimination.
Abstract: In this article we review some new evidence relating to early visual processing and propose an explanatory framework. A series of search experiments tested detection of targets distinguished from the distractors by differences on a single dimension. Our aim was to use the pattern of search latencies to infer which features are coded automatically in early vision. For each of 12 different dimensions, one or more pairs of contrasting stimuli were tested. Each member of a pair played the role of target in one condition and the role of distractor in the other condition. Many pairs gave rise to a marked asymmetry in search latencies, such that one stimulus in the pair was detected either through parallel processing or with small increases in latency as display size increased, whereas the other gave search functions that increased much more steeply. Targets denned by larger values on the quantitative dimensions of length, number, and contrast, by line curvature, by misaligned orientation, and by values that deviated from a standard or prototypical color or shape were detected easily, whereas targets defined by smaller values on the quantitative dimensions, by straightness, by frame-aligned orientation, and by prototypical colors or shapes required slow and apparently serial search. These values appear to be coded by default, as the absence of the contrasting values. We found no feature of line arrangements that allowed automatic, preattentive detection; nor did connectedness or containment—the two examples of topological features that we tested. We interpret the results as evidence that focused attention to single items or to groups is required to reduce background activity when the Weber fraction distinguishing the pooled feature activity with displays containing a target and with displays containing only distractors is too small to allow reliable discrimination.
2,240 citations
TL;DR: The findings from human and animal studies provide the basis for a relatively precise description of the neuronal circuits mediating sustained attention, and the dissociation between these circuits and those mediating the 'arousal' components of attention.
1,056 citations
TL;DR: Working memory capacity is limited both by the independent capacity of simple feature stores and by demands on attention networks that integrate this distributed information into complex but unified thought objects.
Abstract: The integration of complex information in working memory, and its effect on capacity, shape the limits of conscious cognition. The literature conflicts on whether short-term visual memory represents information as integrated objects. A change-detection paradigm using objects defined by color with location or shape was used to investigate binding in short-term visual memory. Results showed that features from the same dimension compete for capacity, whereas features from different dimensions can be stored in parallel. Binding between these features can occur, but focused attention is required to create and maintain the binding over time, and this integrated format is vulnerable to interference. In the proposed model, working memory capacity is limited both by the independent capacity of simple feature stores and by demands on attention networks that integrate this distributed information into complex but unified thought objects.
877 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored whether university dormitory residents with more natural views from their windows would score better than those with less natural views on tests of directed attention, finding that natural views were associated with better performance on attentional measures.
703 citations
TL;DR: The research within the global/local paradigm is reviewed, and it is suggested that a direct comparison between processing of wholistic and component properties is needed to support the hypothesis about the perceptual primacy ofWholistic processing.
Abstract: The question of whether perception is analytic or wholistic is an enduring issue in psychology. The global-precedence hypothesis, considered by many as a modern version of the Gestaltist claim about the perceptual primacy of wholes, has generated a large body of research, but the debate still remains very active. This article reviews the research within the global/local paradigm, and critically analyzes the assumptions underlying this paradigm. The extent to which this line of research contributes to understanding the role of wholistic processing in object perception is discussed. It is concluded that one should be very cautious in making inferences about wholistic processing from the processing advantage of the global level of stimulus structure. A distinction is proposed between global properties, defined by their position in the hierarchical structure of the stimulus, and wholistic properties, defined as a function of interrelations among component parts. It is suggested that a direct comparison between processing of wholistic and component properties is needed to support the hypothesis about the perceptual primacy of wholistic processing.
699 citations