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What causes interference in short-term memory? We report the novel finding that immediate memory for visually-presented verbal items is sensitive to disruption from task-irrelevant vibrotactile stimuli. Specifically, short-term memory for a visual sequence is disrupted by a concurrently presented sequence of vibrations, but only when the vibrotactile sequence entails change (when the sequence “jumps” between the two hands). The impact on visual-verbal serial recall was similar in magnitude to that for auditory stimuli (Experiment 1). Performance of the missing item task, requiring recall of item-identity rather than item-order, was unaffected by changing-state vibrotactile stimuli (Experiment 2), as with changing-state auditory stimuli. Moreover, the predictability of the changing-state sequence did not modulate the magnitude of the effect, arguing against an attention-capture conceptualisation (Experiment 3). Results support the view that interference in short-term memory is produced by conflict between incompatible, amodal serial-ordering processes (interference-by-process) rather than interference between similar representational codes (interference-by-content). Funding: Forskningsradet for Arbetsliv och Socialvetenskap [2211-0505]; Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse [2014.0205]; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [2020-05626]; Bial Foundation [201/20]; Swedish Research Council- Vetenskapsradet [2015-01116]

Cognitive training aims to produce a durable transfer to untrained abilities (i.e., far transfer). However, designing effective programs is difficult, because far transfer mechanisms are not well understood. Greenwood and Parasuraman (Neuropsychol 30(6):742-755. https://doi.org/10.1037/neu0000235 , 2016) proposed that the ability to ignore distractions is key in promoting far transfer. While the authors identified working-memory training based on the N-back task as an effective way to train distraction suppression, a recent meta-analysis concluded that this form of training rarely produces far transfer. Such inconsistency casts doubt onto the importance of distraction suppression in far transfer and calls for further examination of the role of this ability in cognitive training effectiveness. We propose here to conceptualize distraction suppression in the light of the load theory of attention, which distinguishes two mechanisms of distractor rejection depending on the level and type of information load involved: perceptual selection and cognitive control. From that standpoint, N-back training engages a single suppression mechanism, namely cognitive control, because it mainly involves low perceptual load. In the present study, we compared the efficacy of N-back training in producing far transfer to that of a new response-competition training paradigm that solicits both distraction suppression mechanisms. Response-competition training was the only one to produce far transfer effects relative to an active control training. These findings provided further support to Greenwood and Parasuraman's hypothesis and suggest that both selection perception and cognitive control need to be engaged during training to increase the ability to suppress distraction, hence to promote far transfer.

A rare and unexpected change (or deviation) in the properties of an irrelevant auditory background can disrupt performance of a visual focal task via attentional capture. Although this effect is typically caused by a change in the acoustic properties of the sound, recent evidence has shown that a change in (semantic) category within a sound stream could also disrupt ongoing cognitive activity. The present study aimed to investigate the functional characteristics of this recently discovered categorical deviation effect. In two experiments, an irrelevant sound stream was presented while participants performed visual serial recall. We examined whether working memory capacity (WMC) is associated with susceptibility to distraction by an unexpected change in category within the sound. Acoustically deviating sounds were also presented to compare the categorical and acoustic deviation effects directly. Both experiments revealed that the categorical deviation effect was not correlated with WMC. The expected relationship between WMC and the acoustic deviation effect was observed, but the acoustic and categorical deviation effects were unrelated. Our results constitute new evidence of a distinction between the acoustic and categorical deviation effects despite their apparent similarity. They also suggest that the categorical deviation effect is not underpinned by attentional capture.

Les conversations téléphoniques (demilogues) ou entre collègues (dialogues) en arrière-plan sont particulièrement dérangeantes dans les bureaux de travail à aire ouverte. De récents travaux proposent que les discussions portant sur des sujets de nature personnelle possèdent un potentiel distracteur accru qui les rendrait pratiquement impossibles à ignorer. Ce serait l’aspect intrigant des conversations personnelles qui favoriserait leur écoute volontaire. La présente étude tente de confirmer cette hypothèse en comparant l’impact distracteur des conversations professionnelles et personnelles. Ainsi, 240 participants réalisent une tâche de bureau soit en silence, soit en présence d’un dialogue ou d’un demilogue à ignorer. Ces conversations non pertinentes comprennent un discours au contenu soit personnel, soit professionnel. Le degré d’engagement à la tâche, censé offrir une protection contre la distraction, est manipulé en employant une police à caractère fluente (facile à lire) ou disfluente (difficile à lire). Les résultats montrent que les conversations, tronquées ou complètes, entraînent une diminution de la performance à la tâche indépendamment de leur contenu. L’utilisation d’une police disfluente ne module pas non plus l’effet distracteur de ces conversations. Ces résultats proposent que les travailleurs dans les bureaux à aire ouverte seraient distraits par les conversations ambiantes, peu importe la nature du contenu.

Security surveillance entails many cognitive challenges (e.g., task interruption, vigilance decrements, cognitive overload). To help surveillance operators overcome these difficulties and perform more efficient visual search, gaze-based intelligent systems can be developed. The present study aimed at testing the impact of the Scantracker system—which pinpointed neglected cameras while detecting and correcting attentional tunneling and vigilance decrease—on human scanning behavior and surveillance performance. Participants took part in a surveillance simulation, monitoring cameras and searching for ongoing incidents, and half of them was supported by the Scantracker. Although behavioral surveillance performance was not improved, participants supported by the Scantracker showed more efficient gaze-based measures of surveillance. Moreover, some of these measures were associated with performance, suggesting that scan pattern improvements might lead indirectly to more efficient incident detection. Overall, these results speak to the potential of using gaze- aware intelligent systems to support surveillance operators.

Background Wearable devices collect physiological and behavioral data that have the potential to identify individuals at risk of declining mental health and well-being. Past research has mainly focused on assessing the accuracy and the agreement of heart rate (HR) measurement of wearables under different physical exercise conditions. However, the capacity of wearables to sense physiological changes, assessed by increasing HR, caused by a stressful event has not been thoroughly studied. Objective This study followed 3 objectives: (1) to test the ability of a wearable device (Fitbit Versa 2) to sense an increase in HR upon induction of psychological stress in the laboratory; (2) to assess the accuracy of the wearable device to capture short-term HR variations caused by psychological stress compared to a gold-standard electrocardiogram (ECG) measure (Biopac); and (3) to quantify the degree of agreement between the wearable device and the gold-standard ECG measure across different experimental conditions. Methods Participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test protocol, which consists of an oral phase, an arithmetic stress phase, an anticipation phase, and 2 relaxation phases (at the beginning and the end). During the stress protocol, the participants wore a Fitbit Versa 2 and were also connected to a Biopac. A mixed-effect modeling approach was used (1) to assess the effect of experimental conditions on HR, (2) to estimate several metrics of accuracy, and (3) to assess the agreement: the Bland-Altman limits of agreement (LoA), the concordance correlation coefficient, the coverage probability, the total deviation index, and the coefficient of an individual agreement. Mean absolute error and mean absolute percent error were calculated as accuracy indices. Results A total of 34 university students were recruited for this study (64% of participants were female with a mean age of 26.8 years, SD 8.3). Overall, the results showed significant HR variations across experimental phases. Post hoc tests revealed significant pairwise differences for all phases. Accuracy analyses revealed acceptable accuracy according to the analyzed metrics of accuracy for the Fitbit Versa 2 to capture the short-term variations in psychological stress levels. However, poor indices of agreement between the Fitbit Versa 2 and the Biopac were found. Conclusions Overall, the results support the use of the Fitbit Versa 2 to capture short-term stress variations. The Fitbit device showed acceptable levels of accuracy but poor agreement with an ECG gold standard. Greater inaccuracy and smaller agreement were found for stressful experimental conditions that induced a higher HR. Fitbit devices can be used in research to measure HR variations caused by stress, although they cannot replace an ECG instrument when precision is of utmost importance.

BACKGROUND Wearable devices collect physiological and behavioral data that have the potential to identify individuals at risk of declining mental health and well-being. Past research has mainly focused on assessing the accuracy and the agreement of heart rate (HR) measurement of wearables under different physical exercise conditions. However, the capacity of wearables to sense physiological changes, assessed by increasing HR, caused by a stressful event has not been thoroughly studied. OBJECTIVE This study followed three objectives. First, to test the ability of a wearable device (Fitbit Versa 2) to sense an increase in HR upon induction of psychological stress in the laboratory. Second, to assess the accuracy of the wearable device to capture short-term HR variations caused by psychological stress compared to a gold-standard electrocardiogram (ECG) measure (Biopac). Third, to quantify the degree of agreement between the wearable device and the gold-standard ECG measure across different experimental conditions. METHODS Participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test protocol which consists of an oral phase, an arithmetic stress phase, an anticipation phase, and two relaxation phases (at the beginning and the end). During the stress protocol, participants wore a Fitbit Versa 2 and were also connected to a Biopac. A mixed-effect modeling approach was used to assess 1) the effect of experimental conditions on HR and 2) to estimate several metrics of accuracy and 3) agreement: the Bland-Altman limits of agreement, the concordance correlation coefficient, the coverage probability, the total deviation index, and the coefficient of individual agreement. Mean absolute error and mean absolute percent error were calculated as accuracy indices. RESULTS A total of 34 university students were recruited for this study (64% of participants were female with a mean age of 26.8 years SD=8.3). Overall, results showed significant HR variations across experimental phases. Post-hoc tests revealed significant pairwise differences for all phases. Accuracy analyses revealed acceptable accuracy for the Fitbit Versa 2 to capture the short-term variations in psychological stress levels. However, poor indices of agreement between the Fitbit Versa 2 and the Biopac were found. CONCLUSIONS Overall, results support the use of the Fitbit Versa 2 to capture short-term stress variations. The Fitbit device showed acceptable levels of accuracy but poor agreement with an ECG gold standard. Greater inaccuracy and smaller agreement were found for stressful experimental conditions that induced a higher HR. Fitbit device can be used in research to measure HR variations caused by stress although it cannot replace an ECG instrument when precision is of utmost importance.

Les différentes théories de l’impulsivité suggèrent que la présence plus prononcée de ce trait de personnalité est liée à une plus grande susceptibilité à la distraction. Une distractibilité accrue pourrait être particulièrement problématique dans les environnements caractérisés par la présence de bruits ambiants comme les bureaux à aire ouverte. La recherche montre notamment que les conversations en arrière-plan sont dérangeantes, plus spécifiquement les demilogues, ces conversations téléphoniques où un seul interlocuteur est entendu. Ainsi, la présente étude vise à vérifier si les individus plus impulsifs sont plus sensibles à l’effet de demilogue que ceux moins impulsifs. Pour ce faire, 60 adultes effectuent une tâche de bureau informatisée écologique en présence d’un demilogue, d’un dialogue (où les deux interlocuteurs peuvent être entendus) ou en silence. À l’aide de deux mesures auto-rapportées de l’impulsivité, les participants sont groupés selon leur niveau d’impulsivité : faible ou élevé. Les résultats montrent une diminution de la performance en présence de dialogue et de demilogue, sans égard au niveau d’impulsivité. La sensibilité à l’effet de demilogue n’est donc pas influencée par le niveau d’impulsivité. Ces résultats vont à l’encontre des théories existantes, remettant ainsi en question l’association entre impulsivité et distractibilité.

In complex dynamic work environments, the consequences of task interruptions on performance can put public safety at risk. If not designed carefully, current tools aiming to facilitate interruption recovery can instead hamper performance because of information overload. Although a simpler solution-the forewarning of an imminent interruption-has proven effective in static contexts, existing theories of task interruption do not clearly predict its impact on the resumption of dynamically evolving tasks. The current study examined the effects of a preinterruption warning in dynamic settings to develop a better understanding of task resumption and supplement current theoretical accounts. In a simulation of above-water warfare, scenarios were either uninterrupted, unexpectedly interrupted, or interrupted following an auditory warning. Behavioral, oculomotor, and pupillometric data regarding decision making, information processing, and cognitive load were computed before, during, and after each interruption (or the corresponding moment). Interruption warnings triggered a cognitively demanding preinterruption preparation that, in turn, speeded up postinterruption information processing and decision making and lowered cognitive load when resuming the interrupted task. These findings help to complement current theories of interruptions while showing that preinterruption warnings represent a promising way to support interruption recovery in complex dynamic situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The mere presence of task-irrelevant auditory stimuli is known to interfere with cognitive functioning. Disruption can be caused by changing auditory distractors (the changing-state effect) or by a sound that deviates from the auditory background (the deviation effect). The unitary account of auditory distraction explains both phenomena in terms of attentional capture whereas the duplex-mechanism account posits that they reflect two fundamentally different forms of distraction in which only the deviation effect is caused by attentional capture. To test these predictions, we exploited a physiological index of attention orienting: the pupillary dilation response (PDR). Participants performed visual serial recall while ignoring sequences of spoken letters. These sequences either comprised repeated or changing letters, and one letter could sometimes be replaced by pink noise (the deviant). Recall was poorer in both changing-state and deviant trials. Interestingly, the PDR was elicited by deviant sounds but not changing-state sounds, while a tonic increase in pupil size was found throughout changing-state trials. This physiological dissociation of the changing-state and the deviation effects suggests they are subtended by distinct mechanisms thereby procuring support for the duplex-mechanism account over the unitary account.

Sight-singing is prevalent in aural skill classes, where learners differ in experience and cognitive abilities. In this research, we investigated whether musical experience, level of study, and working memory capacity (WMC) can predict sight-singing performance and if there is a correlation between WMC and performance among some subgroups of participants. We hypothesized that more experienced students and those with a higher WMC might sight-sing better than those with less experience and lesser WMC. We also hypothesized that the relationship between WMC and sight-singing performance would be more salient for less experienced and less proficient sight-singers. We surveyed 56 subjects about their experience with music, assessed their WMC, and evaluated their performance on a short sight-singing task. The results showed that the age when students began learning music could predict sight-singing performance independently from the number of years of experience and the educational level, suggesting a possible developmental component to sight-singing skill. We also found a negative relationship between WMC and pitch score in the low-performing group and between rhythm and pitch score, suggesting that pitch and rhythm are processed differently. Teachers should be aware of how students’ backgrounds might be related to performance and encourage them to develop strong automated skills, such as reading music or singing basic tonal patterns.

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) is increasingly used as a means to ensure the safety and security of critical infrastructure and public spaces. Operators in control rooms are responsible for monitoring multiple camera feeds that generally exceed the number of screens available. Using a realistic video surveillance simulation, the current study investigates strategies that untrained operators use to deal with this visual overload. The majority of participants adopted a priority strategy by fixating some scenes more than others, as opposed to a parity strategy of devoting roughly equal time across all screens—although participants were largely unaware of the strategy they had used. A parity approach led to better detection performance, perhaps because less time elapsed between viewing each available camera feed thus reducing the probability that an incident could pass unnoticed. The identification of successful scanning strategies can be used to inform operator training.

Multitasking-the performance of several tasks at the same time-is becoming increasingly prevalent in workplaces. Multitasking is known to disrupt performance, particularly in complex and dynamic si ...

The rare presentation of a sound that deviates from the auditory background tends to capture attention, which is known to impede cognitive functioning. Such disruption is usually measured using per...

The failure to notice critical changes in both visual and auditory scenes may have important consequences for performance in complex dynamic environments, especially those related to security, such as aviation, surveillance during major events, and command and control of emergency response. Previous work has shown that a significant number of situation changes remain undetected by operators in such environments. In the current study, we examined the impact of using auditory warning messages to support the detection of critical situation changes and to a broader extent the decision making required by the environment. Twenty-two participants performed a radar operator task involving multiple subtasks while detecting critical task-related events that were cued by a specific type of audio message. Results showed that about 22% of the critical changes remained undetected by participants, a percentage similar to that found in previous work using visual cues to support change detection. However, we found that audio messages tended to bias threat evaluation toward perceiving objects as more threatening than they were in reality. Such findings revealed both benefits and costs associated with using audio messages to support change detection in complex dynamic environments.

Providing decision support to operators in command and control contexts requires careful assessment of its impacts on task performance. Here we describe a human-in-the-loop experiment using a naval air defense testbed to compare three conditions: 1) a baseline interface (DSSBASE; 2) one that displays the temporal proximity of radar aircraft (DSSTEMP); and 3) one which adds a change history panel (DSSCHEX). Threatevaluation accuracy and cognitive models of participants’ judgments did not significantly differ across conditions. Eye-tracking data showed that DSSTEMP lead to a reduced verification of track attributes. Confusion matrices also differed across conditions: DSSTEMP lead to more errors that are “two-categoriesaway” when erroneously classifying hostile aircraft as non-hostile or uncertain. We conclude that in addition to looking at standard metrics of task accuracy and response times, critical insights can be obtained by assessing how different designs for decision support may alter strategies and cognitive processes.

Cell-phone conversation is ubiquitous within public spaces. The current study investigates whether ignored cell-phone conversation impairs eyewitness memory for a perpetrator. Participants viewed a video of a staged crime in the presence of 1 side of a comprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningful halfalogue), 2 sides of a comprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningful dialogue), 1 side of an incomprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningless halfalogue), or quiet. Between 24 and 28 hr later, participants freely described the perpetrator's face, constructed a single composite image of the perpetrator from memory, and attempted to identify the perpetrator from a sequential lineup. Further, participants rated the likeness of the composites to the perpetrator. Face recall and lineup identification were impaired when participants witnessed the staged crime in the presence of a meaningful halfalogue compared to a meaningless halfalogue, meaningful dialogue, or quiet. Moreover, likeness ratings showed that the composites constructed after ignoring the meaningful halfalogue resembled the perpetrator less than did those constructed after experiencing quiet or ignoring a meaningless halfalogue or a meaningful dialogue. The unpredictability of the meaningful content of the halfalogue, rather than its acoustic unexpectedness, produces distraction. The results are novel in that they suggest that an everyday distraction, even when presented in a different modality to target information, can impair the long-term memory of an eyewitness. (PsycINFO Database Record

While the development of intelligent technologies in security surveillance can augment human capabilities, they do not replace the role of the operator entirely; as such, when developing surveillance support it is critical that limitations to the cognitive system are taken into account. The current article reviews the cognitive challenges associated with the task of a CCTV operator: visual search and cognitive/perceptual overload, attentional failures, vulnerability to distraction, and decision-making in a dynamically evolving environment. While not directly applied to surveillance issues, we suggest that the NSEEV (noticing – salience, effort, expectancy, value) model of attention could provide a useful theoretical basis for understanding the challenges faced in detection and monitoring tasks. Having identified cognitive limitations of the human operator, this review sets out a research agenda for further understanding the cognitive functioning related to surveillance, and highlights the need to consider the human element at the design stage when developing technological solutions to security surveillance.

The validity of two commercial-off-the-shelf eye trackers, including a fixed system and a mobile device, was compared in the context of a gaze-based assistant tool implemented to aid security surveillance. Participants performed a security surveillance simulation that required them to detect incidents across multiple video feeds. Aid from the Scantracker system—pinpointing neglected cameras while detecting and correcting attentional tunneling and vigilance decrease—was provided using gaze measures. Despite the lower amount of valid data for the mobile system, both devices computed similar measures of surveillance performance. Findings speak to the feasibility of using mobile robust-to-movement decision-support systems based on real-time gaze data to help improve incident detection in security surveillance environments.

We observed how information about the structure of tone sequences modulates cortical responses in the context of a standard short-term memory (STM) task. Participants heard two sequences of one, three, or five tones (203 ms on, 203 ms off) interspersed by a silent interval (2 s) and decided whether the sequences were the same or different. In experiment 1, sequence length was randomized between trials. During the first sequence, the amplitude of the auditory P2 was larger for the second tone in trials with three tones, and for the second and fourth tone in trials with five tones. We hypothesize the increase in P2 reflected a dynamic disambiguation process because these tones were predictive of a sequence longer than one or three tones. This hypothesis was supported by the absence of P2 amplitude modulation during the second sequence (when sequence length was known). In experiment 2, we blocked trials by sequence length to ensure the effects were not caused by some process related to encoding in STM. There was no P2 amplitude modulation in either the first or second sequences. Thus, tones 2 and 4 had a larger amplitude only when they provided new information about the length of the current tone sequence. To some extent, the auditory N1 also showed those modulations. Independent Component Analysis of the ERPs provided evidence the modulations in P2 amplitude could originate in auditory cortex. These results suggest a rapid dynamic adaptation of auditory cortical responses based on the local informativeness of auditory signals.

The CSSS microworld simulates the task of a closed-circuit television (CCTV) operator responsible for monitoring multiple CCTV feeds in the context of security surveillance. Operators must manage the display of multiple CCTV feeds, monitor the feeds for critical incidents, and then report detected incidents. The microworld can be used for human factors research, interface design, training and personnel selection, and systems engineering. We present a use case of the CSSS microworld to identify the best predictors of CCTV performance. Our results show that the Automated Operation Span and inattentional blindness tests can predict both CSSS detection rate and false alarms, suggesting that these instruments have the potential for quickly assessing the surveillance competency of candidates. This use case illustrates how the CSSS platform may prove to be useful in the selection of personnel for CCTV operator roles.

Dynamic and complex command and control situations often require the timely recognition of changes in the environment in order to detect potentially malicious actions. Change detection can be challenging within a continually evolving scene, and particularly under multitasking conditions whereby attention is necessarily divided between several subtasks. On-screen tools can assist with detection (e.g., providing a visual record of changes, ensuring that none are overlooked), however, in a high workload environment, this may result in information overload to the detriment of the primary task. One alternative is to exploit the auditory modality as a means to support visual change detection. In the current study, we use a naval air-warfare simulation, and introduce an auditory alarm to coincide with critical visual changes (in aircraft speed/direction) on the radar. We found that participants detected a greater percentage of visual changes and were significantly quicker to detect these changes when they were accompanied by an auditory alarm than when they were not. Furthermore, participants reported that mental demand was lower in the auditory alarm condition, and this was reflected in reduced classification omissions on the primary task. Results are discussed in relation to Wickens’ multiple resource theory of attention and indicate the potential for using the auditory modality to facilitate visual change detection.

Operators working in extreme environments are often confronted with task interruptions. These interruptions tend to impair performance, which can represent a threat to public safety. Most of the tools designed to aid task resumption in such dynamic contexts are post-interruption solutions consisting of providing information about missed events once the interruption is over. The goal of the present study is to test whether a pre-interruption solution consisting of warning operators of an impending interruption can also facilitate interruption recovery. We employed a microworld simulating above-water warfare and compared primary task recovery following an interruption that could either be notified (8 s before it takes place) or not. Results revealed enhanced post-interruption decision accuracy and speed when providing foreknowledge of the imminent interruption. These findings suggest that a pre-interruption warning, which has already proven effective in static contexts, can also support interruption recovery in dynamic settings.

Policy capturing is a judgment analysis method that typically uses linear statistical modeling to estimate expert judgments. A variant to this technique is to capture decision policies using data-mining algorithms designed to handle nonlinear decision rules, missing attributes, and noisy data. In the current study, we tested the effectiveness of a decision-tree induction algorithm and an instance-based classification method for policy capturing in comparison to the standard linear approach. Decision trees are relevant in naturalistic decision-making contexts since they can be used to represent “fast-and-frugal” judgment heuristics, which are well suited to describe human cognition under time pressure. We examined human classification behavior using a simulated naval air defense task in order to empirically compare the C4.5 decision-tree algorithm, the k-nearest neighbors algorithm, and linear regression on their ability to capture individual decision policies. Results show that C4.5 outperformed the other methods in terms of goodness of fit and cross-validation accuracy. Decision-tree models of individuals’ judgment policies actually classified contacts more accurately than their human counterparts, resulting in a threefold reduction in error rates. We conclude that a decision-tree induction algorithm can yield useful models for training and decision support applications, and we discuss the application of judgmental bootstrapping in real time in dynamic environments.

While eye tracking can provide invaluable information on visual cognition, it is uncertain whether the pattern of one’s ocular behavior could reflect mental processes beyond the mere visual encoding of task-relevant information. The present study is concerned with the use of eye-movement measures as indicators of the cognitive processing involved in situation monitoring and dynamic decision-making tasks. In the context of a computer-controlled simulation of radar-based risk assessment, we monitored eye movements and extracted metrics relative to 1) scanpath, 2) eye fixations, and 3) pupillary response in order to predict the quality of decisions and time taken to classify aircraft displayed on a radar screen according to their threat level. Based on multiple regressions performed on almost 10,000 classifications, eye-tracking data can explain 77.9% of the variance in decision time but failed to predict classification accuracy. However, when regressions were applied to individual differences, eye movements can predict both classification time (69.2%) and accuracy (45.9%). While the analysis of scanpath and fixation duration is a good indicator of information seeking and can predict the time taken to make a decision, pupil dilation appears to be informative on the quality of that decision. These findings show how dynamic, event-based measures of eye movements could serve as an assessment method that goes beyond traditional usability testing and provide insights in the design of user interface and decision support systems.

Telephone conversation is ubiquitous within the office setting. Overhearing a telephone conversation-whereby only one of the two speakers is heard-is subjectively more annoying and objectively more distracting than overhearing a full conversation. The present study sought to determine whether this "halfalogue" effect is attributable to unexpected offsets and onsets within the background speech (acoustic unexpectedness) or to the tendency to predict the unheard part of the conversation (semantic [un]predictability), and whether these effects can be shielded against through top-down cognitive control. In Experiment 1, participants performed an office-related task in quiet or in the presence of halfalogue and dialogue background speech. Irrelevant speech was either meaningful or meaningless speech. The halfalogue effect was only present for the meaningful speech condition. Experiment 2 addressed whether higher task-engagement could shield against the halfalogue effect by manipulating the font of the to-be-read material. Although the halfalogue effect was found with an easy-to-read font (fluent text), the use of a difficult-to-read font (disfluent text) eliminated the effect. The halfalogue effect is thus attributable to the semantic (un)predictability, not the acoustic unexpectedness, of background telephone conversation and can be prevented by simple means such as increasing the level of engagement required by the focal task. (PsycINFO Database Record

Task-irrelevant speech impairs short-term serial recall appreciably. On the interference-by-process account, the processing of physical (i.e., precategorical) changes in speech yields order cues that conflict with the serial-ordering process deployed to perform the serial recall task. In this view, the postcategorical properties (e.g., phonology, meaning) of speech play no role. The present study reassessed the implications of recent demonstrations of auditory postcategorical distraction in serial recall that have been taken as support for an alternative, attentional-diversion, account of the irrelevant speech effect. Focusing on the disruptive effect of emotionally valent compared with neutral words on serial recall, we show that the distracter-valence effect is eliminated under conditions-high task-encoding load-thought to shield against attentional diversion whereas the general effect of speech (neutral words compared with quiet) remains unaffected (Experiment 1). Furthermore, the distracter-valence effect generalizes to a task that does not require the processing of serial order-the missing-item task-whereas the effect of speech per se is attenuated in this task (Experiment 2). We conclude that postcategorical auditory distraction phenomena in serial short-term memory (STM) are incidental: they are observable in such a setting but, unlike the acoustically driven irrelevant speech effect, are not integral to it. As such, the findings support a duplex-mechanism account over a unitary view of auditory distraction. (PsycINFO Database Record

Certain(e)s chercheur(euse)s attribuent l’inefficacité des politiques environnementales à différents facteurs cognitifs. Cependant, leurs mécanismes sous-jacents sont encore méconnus. Une récente proposition théorique suggère l’existence d’une origine commune entre plusieurs de ces distorsions cognitives. Afin de tester cette proposition, la présente étude vise à établir une relation entre deux biais cognitifs, soient les croyances compensatoires vertes et l’illusion d’empreinte écologique négative. Pour ce faire, 114 participant(e)s remplissent quatre questionnaires portant respectivement sur chacun des deux biais, ainsi que sur la désirabilité sociale et l’identité verte. Les résultats aux questionnaires ne montrent aucune relation entre les croyances compensatoires vertes et le biais d’illusion d’empreinte écologique négative, remettant en question l’idée qu’un biais de moyennage soit à l’origine de ces deux phénomènes. Sans réfuter l’existence de ce mécanisme, il semble que l’identité verte pourrait davantage prédire la présence de croyances compensatoires vertes, tandis que la désirabilité sociale permettrait de prévoir, du moins en partie, la manifestation de l’illusion d’empreinte écologique négative. Des études futures pourraient ainsi considérer l’ajout de variables médiatrices au cadre théorique.

In dynamic environments such as air-traffic control, emergency response and security surveillance, there are severe constraints to information processing and decision-making. Human operators must constantly monitor, assess, and integrate incoming information in order to make optimal decisions in such complex environments. In order to maximize operators’ performance, there is a need for effective technological support for dynamic decision-making. Eye tracking is one promising avenue that can provide online, non-obtrusive indices of cognitive functioning. Using a simulated maritime decision-making environment, we evaluated whether oculometry may be exploited to foretell the decision made by the operator beforehand. Our results showed that pupil dilation and fixation transitions can reveal the upcoming judgment of the human operator by about half a second before the decision. This finding can be useful to design adaptive support tools for dynamic decision-making by integrating the operator’s cognitive state.

Policy capturing is a decision analysis method that typically uses linear statistical modeling to estimate the basis of expert judgments. Using more flexible data mining algorithms may yield more accurate models or instead result in poor functional estimations. The objective of this study is to test the effectiveness of a decision tree induction algorithm for policy capturing in comparison to the standard linear approach. We examined human classification behavior using a simulated naval air-defense task in order to empirically compare the C4.5 decision tree algorithm to linear regression on their ability to capture individual decision policies. The pattern of results shows that C4.5 outperformed linear regression in terms of goodness-of-fit and cross-validation accuracy. Results also show that the decision tree models of individuals’ judgment policies actually classified contacts more accurately than their human counterparts. We conclude that non-linear policy capturing can yield useful models for training and decision support applications.

Using a microworld simulation of maritime decision making, we compared two decision support systems (DSS) in their impact upon recovery from interruption. The Temporal Overview Display (TOD) and Change History Table (CHT) - designed to support temporal awareness and change detection, respectively - have previously proven useful in improving situation awareness; however, evaluation of support tools for multitasking environments should not be limited to the specific aspects of the task that they were designed to augment. Using a combination of performance, self-report, and eye-tracking measures, we find that both DSS counter-intuitively have a negative effect on performance. Resumption lags are increased, elevated post-interruption decision-making times persist for longer, and defensive effectiveness is impaired relative to No-DSS. Eye-tracking measures indicate that in the baseline condition, participants tend to encode the visual display more broadly, where as those in the two DSS conditions may have experienced a degree of attentional tunnelling due to high workload. We suggest that for a support tool to be beneficial it should ease the burden on attentional resources so that these can be used for reconstructing a mental model of the post-interruption scene. We use a maritime microworld to study multitasking and interruption recovery.We use a holistic approach in the assessment of two DSS.We use a combination of performance, self-report and eye tracking measures.Both DSS impair defensive effectiveness and prolong interruption recovery.

The attentional blink (AB) refers to the impairment in accurate report of a second target (T2) when presented shortlyafter a first target (T1) in a rapid serial visual presentation of distractors. The goal of the present study was todetermine whether the AB is caused by a failure in early selection processes, which leads to the selection andconsolidation of the wrong item in working memory, by measuring the frequency-related P3 to T2 and to T211.During the AB, an attenuation of the P3 to T2 was observed, as well as an increase in the amplitude of the P3 toT211. Whereas the P3 to T2 was observed only when T2 was correctly reported, the P3 to T211 was observed onlyin trials where T2 was incorrectly reported, and its amplitude was correlated to individual differences in misselectionrate. These results support the claim that failure of temporal selection underlies the AB.Descriptors: Attentional blink, Misselection, Dual-task interference, Human electrophysiology, P3When interacting with its environment, an organism is constantlybombarded by ever-changing perceptual inputs from different sour-ces. The limited nature of our cognitive system makes it impossibleto process all these stimuli extensively, leaving many at the door-step of consciousness. For goal-directed behavior to be successfulin such an overwhelming environment, the cognitive system mustrely on attentional mechanisms to filter the flow of information inorder to prioritize processing of task-relevant events at the expenseof task-irrelevant events. However, failures in the ability to processmultiple target stimuli occurring closely in time suggest that thetemporal efficiency of selective attention is vulnerable to taskdemand (see, e.g., Shapiro, 2001). In order to investigate the sourceof fundamental limitations in temporal selection, the present studyaims to use ERPs to directly track which items are selected for fur-ther processing within the attentional blink (AB) paradigm, a dual-task paradigm that has been used extensively to investigate thetemporal limitations of human information processing (for recentreviews, see Dux & Marois, 2009; Martens & Wyble, 2010).The ABThe conventional visual AB task requires to report, without speedpressure, the identity of two targets embedded in a rapid serial vis-ual presentation (RSVP) stream of distractors (Raymond, Shapiro,& Arnell, 1992). The AB deficit refers to the difficulty in accu-rately reporting the second target (T2) when presented withinapproximately half a second after the first target (T1). Whereasmost theories of the AB agree that the second-target deficit reflectsimpairment in the processing of T2 while limited attentionalresources are committed to the processing of T1 (but see Olivers M Taatgen, Juvina, Schipper, Borst, & Martens, 2009),there is no consensus among researchers regarding the exact natureof the mechanisms underlying such a limitation. One importantongoing debate is whether the AB results from capacity limitationsin the consolidation of items into working memory or rather fromfailures in attentional selection of items to be consolidated.Capacity limits in short-term consolidation. Several theoriesclaim that the AB is the consequence of capacity limitations at thestage of consolidation into working memory (WM: e.g., Chun P Dehaene, Sergent, & Changeux, 2003; Jolicœur,1998; Potter, Staub, & O’Connor, 2002; Ward, Duncan, & Shapiro,1996). These theories often adhere to a two-stage structure of infor-mation processing as proposed in the two-stage model (Chun &Potter, 1995). In this influent model, the AB is presented as theconsequence of a capacity-limited second stage of processing,which allows the consolidation of targets that were detected in arapid and unlimited first stage. Stage 1 representations are

When the frequency of one harmonic, in a sound composed of many harmonics, is briefly mistuned and then returned to the 'in-tune' frequency and phase, observers report hearing this harmonic as a separate tone long after the brief period of mistuning - a phenomenon called harmonic enhancement. Here, we examined the consequence of harmonic enhancement on listeners' ability to detect a brief amplitude notch embedded in one of the harmonics after the period of mistuning. When present, the notch was either on the enhanced harmonic or on a different harmonic. Detection was better on the enhanced harmonic than on a non-enhanced harmonic. This finding suggests that attention was drawn to the enhanced harmonic (which constituted a new sound object) thereby easing the processing of sound features (i.e., a notch) within that object. This is the first evidence of a functional consequence of the after-effect of transient mistuning on auditory perception. Moreover, the findings provide support for an attention-based explanation of the enhancement phenomenon.

There has been substantial investment in the field of closed-circuit television (CCTV) technology to increase the level of surveillance efficiency and system performance for the security of citizens and the protection of public infrastructures. In control rooms, operators have to actively monitor a number of camera feeds that generally surpass the number of displays available. Operators tend to prioritize some visual scenes to cope with the sheer amount of visual content to monitor. The objective of the present study is to assess the impact on surveillance performance of different monitoring strategies adopted by (nonexpert) operators using a highly realistic CCTV operation simulation.

Change blindness (CB) – the failure to notice visual changes – is an important source of human errors in managing dynamic multitasking situations, especially when the tempo at which the situation evolves as well as the timeliness of the decisions are critical to performance and to achieving higher order goals. The support of temporal awareness – in the form of a Temporal Overview Display (TOD) – proved successful in promoting time-based decision heuristics and increasing the timeliness of actions. In the present study, we test the impact on CB of a tool that provides an external time-based representation of the situation and its evolution within an air-warfare simulation that requires participants to perform radar-based subtasks. Although the use of the TOD was previously shown beneficial to performance, the tool may come with a drawback as participants missed a greater number of critical changes compared to a control condition. The TOD is associated with an exacerbation of the attentional source of CB as suggested by a higher percentage of fixated undetected changes. The contextual cues essential to detect a change may not be salient enough to be quickly found in the tool, especially when the operator must deal with time pressure, multitasking and multiple other sources of information. Our study highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to system development and evaluation in order to prevent unintended consequences such as higher CB rates.

Surveillance operators must scan multiple camera feeds to ensure timely detection of incidents; however, variability in scanning behavior can lead to untimely/failed detection of critical information in feeds that were neglected for a long period. Using an eye tracker to monitor screen fixations we can calculate (in real-time) the time elapsed since the last scan of each particular feed, allowing the setting-up of targeted countermeasures contingent on operator oculomotor behavior. One avenue is to provide operators with timely alerts to modulate the scan pattern to avoid attentional tunneling and inattentional blindness. We test such an adaptive solution within a major event surveillance simulation and preliminary results show that operator scan behavior can be modulated, although further investigation is required to determine warning frequency and modality to optimize the balance between saliency and workload increase. Future work will focus on adding a real-time vigilance detection and countermeasure capability.

The rare occurrence of a sound deviating from the auditory background tends to trigger attentional orienting. While some sympathetic physiological responses can be used to index this orienting response, findings surrounding the pupillary dilation response (PDR) as a proxy for the orienting response are conflicting. The current study was tailor-designed to examine whether the PDR satisfies specific criteria of an orienting response index, namely the classic habituation pattern and a sensitivity to the size of the deviation. The PDR decrement to a repeated standard sound, recovery to a deviant sound, and dishabituation to the re-presentation of the standard were assessed for small and large deviations embedded in irrelevant auditory sequences. The PDR not only showed habituation and dishabituation, but also recovered in correspondence with the magnitude of the acoustic deviation. This consistency between variations of the PDR and orienting response's properties indicates that the PDR is a valid index of the auditory orienting response.

International audience; Large display screens are common in supervisory tasks, meaning that alerts are often perceived in peripheral vision. Five air traffic control notification designs were evaluated in their ability to capture attention during an ongoing supervisory task, as well as their impact on the primary task. A range of performance measures, eye-tracking and subjective reports showed that colour, even animated, was less effective than movement, and notifications sometimes went unnoticed. Designs that drew attention to the notified aircraft by a pulsating box, concentric circles or the opacity of the background resulted in faster perception and no missed notifications. However, the latter two designs were intrusive and impaired primary task performance, while the simpler animated box captured attention without an overhead cognitive cost. These results highlight the need for a holistic approach to evaluation, achieving a balance between the benefits for one aspect of performance against the potential costs for another. Practitioner summary: We performed a holistic examination of air traffic control notification designs regarding their ability to capture attention during an ongoing supervisory task. The combination of performance, eye-tracking and subjective measurements demonstrated that the best design achieved a balance between attentional power and the overhead cognitive cost to primary task performance.

The LABY microworld, a functional simulation of Air Traffic Control (ATC), captures the underlying processes involved in electronic air traffic management with a simplified version of the operational human-machine interface. LABY is a computer-based human-in-the-loop dynamic environment whereby a controller must issue directional commands to guide aircraft along a predetermined route, while avoiding potential conflicts and dealing concurrently with other incoming information. It can be used for human factors research or system engineering purposes, or configured specifically for use with expert controllers for the training of non-technical skills in ATC. We present a use case of LABY, comparing the efficiency of input devices for ATC: Input times using the mouse were quicker than with the stylus, but error was not greater. We discuss the potential of LABY for system engineering, training and research purposes.

We compared the electrophysiological correlates for the maintenance of non-musical tones sequences in auditory short-term memory (ASTM) to those for the short-term maintenance of sequences of coloured disks held in visual short-term memory (VSTM). The visual stimuli yielded a sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN), suggesting that the maintenance of sequences of coloured stimuli engaged structures similar to those involved in the maintenance of simultaneous visual displays. On the other hand, maintenance of acoustic sequences produced a sustained negativity at fronto-central sites. This component is named the Sustained Anterior Negativity (SAN). The amplitude of the SAN increased with increasing load in ASTM and predicted individual differences in the performance. There was no SAN in a control condition with the same auditory stimuli but no memory task, nor one associated with visual memory. These results suggest that the SAN is an index of brain activity related to the maintenance of representations in ASTM that is distinct from the maintenance of representations in VSTM.

Summary: Interruptions impair performance even on simple, static, laboratory-based tasks, but little research has looked at their impact in more complex and realistic settings that involve dynamically evolving circumstances and other environmental stressors. Using a radar operator task with or without background sound, participants were unexpectedly interrupted to complete another task, which masked the radar screen as the scenario continually evolved. Task efficiency was impaired by interruption: decisionmaking time was slower immediately following interruption, this cost being greater and persevered longer in the presence of auditory distraction. Resumption time was also increased with distraction. Eye fixation durations were shorter following interruption, reflecting participants’ attempts to rapidly re-encode and update their model of the situation. These results suggest that those processes involved in task resumption are also susceptible to background sound, and indicate a need for theories of task interruption to better specify the role of attention in interruption recovery. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. System operators in critical command and control (C2) environments such as air traffic control, emergency services, and crisis management, must constantly monitor, assess, and integrate incoming information in order to make optimal decisions in dangerous, complex, and unpredictable task environments. The demand to support cognitive aspects of performance and decision making in such high-reliability environments is growing rapidly, but it is first necessary to gain a conceptual understanding of the cognitive limitations of the human operator to inform the development of such technological support tools. Task interruption is one particular constraint with which operators are often faced. Although

The occurrence of an unexpected, infrequent sound in an otherwise homogeneous auditory background tends to disrupt the ongoing cognitive task. This "deviation effect" is typically explained in terms of attentional capture whereby the deviant sound draws attention away from the focal activity, regardless of the nature of this activity. Yet, there is theoretical and empirical evidence suggesting that the attention-capture mechanism underlying this form of distraction could rather be triggered in a task-contingent fashion. The present study aimed at determining whether the auditory deviation effect reflects the action of either a stimulus-driven or a task-contingent orienting mechanism. To do so, we conducted a systematic investigation whereby the impact of verbal deviants-a letter embedded in the repetition of another letter-and spatial deviants-a sound presented contralaterally to the other sounds-on verbal and spatial short-term memory (STM) was assessed. This study established that both verbal and spatial deviants can hinder both verbal and spatial order-reconstruction (Experiment 1) and missing-item tasks (Experiment 2). Such results demonstrate that the deviation effect reflects a general form of auditory distraction as interference took place both within and across domains and regardless of the processes engaged in the focal task. (PsycINFO Database Record

Pupillary reactions independent of light conditions have been linked to cognition for a long time. However, the light conditions can impact the cognitive pupillary reaction. Previous studies underlined the impact of luminance on pupillary reaction, but it is still unclear how luminance modulates the sustained and transient components of pupillary reaction – tonic pupil diameter and phasic pupil response. In the present study, we investigated the impact of the luminance on these two components under sustained cognitive load. Fourteen participants performed a novel working memory task combining mathematical computations with a classic n-back task. We studied both tonic pupil diameter and phasic pupil response under low (1-back) and high (2-back) working memory load and two luminance levels (gray and white). We found that the impact of working memory load on the tonic pupil diameter was modulated by the level of luminance, the increase in tonic pupil diameter with the load being larger under lower luminance. In contrast, the smaller phasic pupil response found under high load remained unaffected by luminance. These results showed that luminance impacts the cognitive pupillary reaction – tonic pupil diameter (phasic pupil response) being modulated under sustained (respectively, transient) cognitive load. These findings also support the relationship between the locus-coeruleus system, presumably functioning in two firing modes – tonic and phasic – and the pupil diameter. We suggest that the tonic pupil diameter tracks the tonic activity of the locus-coeruleus while phasic pupil response reflects its phasic activity. Besides, the designed novel cognitive paradigm allows the simultaneous manipulation of sustained and transient components of the cognitive load and is useful for dissociating the effects on the tonic pupil diameter and phasic pupil response.

Individuals with schizophrenia typically show increased levels of distractibility. This has been attributed to impaired working memory capacity (WMC), since lower WMC is typically associated with higher distractibility, and schizophrenia is typically associated with impoverished WMC. Here, participants performed verbal and spatial serial recall tasks that were accompanied by to-be-ignored speech tokens. For the few trials wherein one speech token was replaced with a different token, impairment was produced to task scores (a deviation effect). Participants subsequently completed a schizotypy questionnaire and a WMC measure. Higher schizotypy scores were associated with lower WMC (as measured with operation span, OSPAN), but WMC and schizotypy scores explained unique variance in relation to the mean magnitude of the deviation effect. These results suggest that schizotypy is associated with heightened domain-general distractibility, but that this is independent of its relationship with WMC.