Effects of anticipatory alerting signals and a compatible secondary task on vigilance performance.

This visual vigilance study simulated an industrial inspection task in which Ss were alerted to possible targets by a semiautomatic detection device. 1 experimental group was forewarned of possible targets by a buzzer with 1-sec foreperiod and rested between alerting signals. A 2nd experimental group worked on a problem-solving secondary task instead of resting between buzzes. A control group observed the display continuously. Other variables of interest were sex of O, target type, and size of display window. It was found that: (1) performance by alerted groups was far superior to that of controls and continued to improve throughout the task, (2) a vigilance decrement was not in evidence in any condition, (3) the problem-solving task did not interfere with detection performance, (4) male and female Ss performed equally well, and (5) Ss engaged in the problem-solving task greatly underestimated the duration of the detection task and reported it "interesting" while the other groups estimated duration accurately and indicated boredom. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)