20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting1 Examination of Attentional Mechanisms Underlying Stress and Performance J.L. Szalma, T. Oron-Gilad, & P.A. Hancock MURI-OPUS Research Laboratory University of Central Florida

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting2 Approach/Methods Hancock & Warm (1989) Model Adaptation under stress Task dimensions impacting stress state Time pressure Noise Task demand (e.g., spatial uncertainty)

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting3 Approach/Methods Individual differences in performance, workload, stress, and coping Fuzzy Signal Detection Theory

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting4 Adaptability and Stress Hancock & Warm (1989) Adaptability declines at the extremes of stress Tasks are proximal sources of stress Dimensions of task structure:  Information structure (space)  Information rate (time)

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting5 Tasks as Stressors

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting6 Significant Findings The spatial dimension may dominate attention over the temporal Perceptual independence? Spatial uncertainty: Impaired performance Increased global workload Reduced stress symptoms Intermittent white noise increased leniency in responding

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting7 Significant Findings Increased extraversion associated with lower Global Workload and lower Temporal Demand Pessimism predicted decreased task engagement for tasks with spatial uncertainty Pessimism predicted increased Distress regardless of task type.

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting8 Significant Findings Task characteristics may influence the Pessimism-coping style relation, depending on the type of coping Pessimism predicted increased emotion-focused coping, but only in tasks with spatial uncertainty Pessimism predicted avoidant coping regardless of task type

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting9 Significant Findings Traits such as Extraversion and Pessimism impact workload/stress responses, but these may be task dependent (spatial uncertainty) Personality effects depend on the dimension of stress measured as well as task type

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting10 Significant Findings Fuzzy Signal Detection methodology is sensitive to a response bias manipulation in vigilance Fuzzy ROC analysis indicates more sensitive performance by observers relative to performance evaluated using a ‘crisp’ analysis

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting11 Challenges What are the challenges that you have faced in studying this issue or what are the lessons learned? Identifying the relations among task dimensions is very difficult Stress Effects depend on range of stressor (noise level, degree of time pressure, task difficulty)

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting12 Challenges Failures to replicate (noise, personality by task interactions) Deriving proper mapping functions for FSDT analysis ROC analysis in ‘Fuzzy Space’ Simulation Facilities

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting13 Potential Mechanism for Extraversion Effects Less Temporal Demand Time ‘slows down’ Event registration External Locus of Attention Attentional Narrowing Stress/Task Demand Extraversion

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting14 Post-Task Engagement as a Function of Pessimism Post-Task Engagement Standardized Scores Pessimism TE = -0.07P R 2 = Only for tasks with spatial uncertainty

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting15 Results: Experiment 2 M=.50FA T M=.33 FA S M=.45FA M=.26

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting16 Performance Operating Characteristics Vary the allocation of attention between two tasks Task ATask B 100%0 90%10% 50% 10%90% 0100%

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting17 Performance Operating Characteristics

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting18

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting19 Performance Operating Characteristics

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting20 Performance Operating Characteristics Attention Allocation Failures?

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting21 How Does Stress Impact d’? and β?How Does Stress Impact d’? and β? d’ is reducedd’ is reduced β increases (sometimes)β increases (sometimes) Signal Detection under Stress Stress Effects on d’ Stress Effects on β p(H) p(FA)

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting22 Fuzzy Stimulus and Response: Duration Discrimination msec msec

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting23 Comparison of Fuzzy and Crisp ROC Curves Crisp Fuzzy

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting24 Response Bias as a function of periods of watch: Transition from Low

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting25 Application of FSDT to Tank Identification

20-24 September 2004Szalma, Oron-Gilad, & Hancock – HFES Annual Meeting26 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This work was supported by the Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program administered by the Army Research Office under Grant DAAD P.A. Hancock, Principal Investigator. The views expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect official Army policy. The authors wish to thank Dr. Sherry Tove, Dr. Elmar Schmeisser, and Dr. Mike Drillings for providing administrative and technical direction for the Grant.