The yerkes-dodson law predicts that individuals will perform best on a difficult task when their

Exploring the sustained and divided attention of novice versus experienced drivers

2022, Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives

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Driving is a complex task that requires appropriate engagement in, and regulation of, sustained attention and divided attention. This study explored the sustained- and divided-attention function of novice young adult drivers and experienced adult drivers.

Fifteen novice young adult drivers (mean age = 20.07) and 18 experienced adult drivers (mean age = 41.33) participated in the study. The participants’ sustained and divided attention were assessed using a computerised fixed Sustained Attention-to-Response Task (SART) and a modified version with low cognitive-load and high cognitive-load conditions. Their attention was also assessed using the Color Trails Test (CTT) and Digit Span Test (DST). The participants’ cognitive resources that were available during the assessments were monitored using the Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME).

The main results of this study showed that the experienced drivers had significantly higher performance in terms of accuracy in both sustained attention (p = 0.011) and divided attention (p = 0.008 and 0.006 in low and high cognitive-load conditions, respectively) components of the SART. No significant differences in the CTT and DST were found between the two groups. The results of the RSME also indicated that both groups had comparable cognitive resources available throughout the assessments.

This study suggests that experienced adult drivers have a higher developed ability to engage in and maintain sustained and divided attention appropriately. These results provide insight related to attention function, which might affect novice young adult drivers compared with experienced drivers.

Human automation interaction

2018, Space Safety and Human Performance

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This chapter focuses on how humans manage increasingly automated systems and how human-centered design can enhance safe and effective human-automation interaction. Beginning with an overview of the general risks of automation that can lead to misuse, disuse and abuse by the user, the chapter then turns to human automation function allocation, which is both a design and user concern. Also discussed is the role of the human as exception handler particularly in critical situations. The chapter ends with the special case of human-robotic interaction. In space operations, robotics may be remotely or colocated but human-automation principles generally hold. However, specific design guidelines and performance assessment tools will need to be developed for long-duration, long-distance missions.

Bestial boredom: a biological perspective on animal boredom and suggestions for its scientific investigation

2017, Animal Behaviour

Citation Excerpt :

Boredom might provide the motivation to stay within optimal levels of arousal for learning or maximal task performance. The Yerkes–Dodson law predicts a U-shaped relationship between arousal and performance, which is often corroborated (e.g. Anderson, 1994), but see Wu et al. (2010) for example. Boredom can arise when tasks are too easy or too difficult, especially if learning is not achieved (e.g. Acee et al., 2010), so it encourages switching attention to more rewarding activities.

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Boredom is likely to have adaptive value in motivating exploration and learning, and many animals may possess the basic neurological mechanisms to support it. Chronic inescapable boredom can be extremely aversive, and understimulation can harm neural, cognitive and behavioural flexibility. Wild and domesticated animals are at particular risk in captivity, which is often spatially and temporally monotonous. Yet biological research into boredom has barely begun, despite having important implications for animal welfare, the evolution of motivation and cognition, and for human dysfunction at individual and societal levels. Here I aim to facilitate hypotheses about how monotony affects behaviour and physiology, so that boredom can be objectively studied by ethologists and other scientists. I cover valence (pleasantness) and arousal (wakefulness) qualities of boredom, because both can be measured, and I suggest boredom includes suboptimal arousal and aversion to monotony. Because the suboptimal arousal during boredom is aversive, individuals will resist low arousal. Thus, behavioural indicators of boredom will, seemingly paradoxically, include signs of increasing drowsiness, alongside bouts of restlessness, avoidance and sensation-seeking behaviour. Valence and arousal are not, however, sufficient to fully describe boredom. For example, human boredom is further characterized by a perception that time ‘drags’, and this effect of monotony on time perception can too be behaviourally assayed in animals. Sleep disruption and some abnormal behaviour may also be caused by boredom. Ethological research into this emotional phenomenon will deepen understanding of its causes, development, function and evolution, and will enable evidence-based interventions to mitigate human and animal boredom.

Human automation interaction

2017, Space Safety and Human Performance

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This chapter focuses on how humans manage increasingly automated systems and how human-centered design can enhance safe and effective human-automation interaction. Beginning with an overview of the general risks of automation that can lead to misuse, disuse and abuse by the user, the chapter then turns to human automation function allocation, which is both a design and user concern. Also discussed is the role of the human as exception handler particularly in critical situations. The chapter ends with the special case of human-robotic interaction. In space operations, robotics may be remotely or colocated but human-automation principles generally hold. However, specific design guidelines and performance assessment tools will need to be developed for long-duration, long-distance missions.

Sex Steroids, Learning and Memory

2017, Hormones, Brain and Behavior: Third Edition

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Several factors modulate learning and memory in animals and humans, including age, biological sex, and even the type of information being learned. However, one of the most important modulators of learning and memory processes is steroid hormones, particularly sex and stress steroids. Over the last decade, the manipulations used to understand the mechanisms underlying steroid hormone influences on learning and memory have greatly advanced the field. This research has shown that across species, steroid hormones exert their influence on processes well beyond reproduction and stress; estradiol, progesterone, and cortisol substantially affect how information is encoded, consolidated, and subsequently, recalled.

Hans Eysenck: Personality theorist

2016, Personality and Individual Differences

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Hans Eysenck was the leading personality and individual differences theorist of the 20th century. His goal was to combine the best theories and practices of experimental psychology with the best measurement techniques of individual differences. From his earliest analyses of the dimensions of individual differences, through multiple iterations at theory building to his lasting achievements in building a paradigm for personality research he left a legacy of broad and rigorous research. He strove to integrate behaviour genetics, psychophysiology, cognitive psychology, aesthetics, and psychometrics into a unified theory of personality and individual differences. Although best known for his biological theory of extraversion, his impact upon the field was much more than that and cannot be summarized in a brief article. I review his major theoretical contributions and relate them to modern personality theory and show how his many contributions continue to shape current personality research.

Research article

From Gibson and Crooks to Damasio: The role of psychology in the development of driver behaviour models

Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Volume 25, Part B, 2014, pp. 112-119

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This article presents a brief history and perspective of behavioural model development in traffic psychology. As one specific example of a key behavioural model, , in their classic field theoretical study, offered the first scientific attempt to deal with the issue of compensation. Two central theoretical concepts were developed: “Field of safe travel” and “Minimum stopping zone”. The interplay between the two was used to describe and explain risk compensation and illustrated by observing the impact of brakes on driver behaviour: Better brakes could make the field of safe travel – i.e. the distance to the car in front – shorter. Nearly 50 years later, the launch of Wilde’s Risk Homeostasis Theory (RHT) gave rise to a profound debate about risk homeostasis and risk compensation. The core issue in the debate was Wilde’s strict assertion that all individuals, not only car-drivers, carry an inherent target level of risk that they are seeking to maintain or restore. Gibson and Crooks fell well within psychological theories of the time, while Wilde’s RHT emerged more from control theory and economic utility theory than from psychology. In the 1990s neuroscience emerges, especially by Damasio who introduces a paradigm that has proven fruitful as a framework of more recent driver behaviour models. But neuroscience also had its forerunner in Taylor’s proposal that driver behaviour is governed by a constancy in Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) which makes driving a self-paced task aiming at keeping the GSR at a constant level. Näätänen and Summala’s integrated Taylor in their “Zero-risk model” which has persisted and still prevails as a solid and well accepted model. Psychological learning theory has, however, rarely been adequately dealt with which is quite odd given the prevalence of speeding and risk compensation which cannot escape explanations based on operant conditioning. The paper discusses the emerging role of psychology and psychological concepts that has been proposed and evolved through the development of driver behaviour models since Gibson and Crooks’ study of 1938. The views presented are subjective, they do not represent any attempt to describe the objective reality of the time.

Research article

An enhanced SHERPA (E-SHERPA) method for human reliability analysis in railway engineering

Reliability Engineering & System Safety, Volume 215, 2021, Article 107866

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According to the European standard EN 50126 human reliability is a fundamental requirement in railway engineering. Notwithstanding that there are only few methods specifically developed for railway field. Trying to fill this gap, this paper proposes a human reliability analysis technique customized on railway applications to simulate a time-dependent model of the human error probability during the work shift. The first novelty of the proposed method is the use of customized task types for railway applications within a third-generation method. Furthermore, the concept of Eustress is considered to evaluate the impact of the stress on the operator performances by means of the Yerkes-Dodson law. The main novelty of the proposed method is the introduction of a simulator which provides the possibility of considering one or more breaks in the work shift allowing to simulate the error probability based on the duration of the break. The maintenance operations carried out on an Italian Automatic Train Protection System have been taken as case study to validate the proposed method in different scenarios. The results illustrate how a break during the working shift of the operator influences the probability of committing an error.

Research article

The relation of flow-experience and physiological arousal under stress — Can u shape it?

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 53, 2014, pp. 62-69

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In this study, we investigate the relationship between stress and flow-experience with the help of psychophysiological arousal indicators. Whereas recent studies suggest a positive relation between flow and physiological arousal, so far nothing is known on the relation between flow and high arousal in response to a salient stressor. We here suggest that the relation of flow with sympathetic arousal and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activation follows an inverted u-curve rather than a linear function: moderate physiological arousal should facilitate flow-experience, whereas excessive physiological arousal should hinder flow. In order to experimentally stimulate high physiological arousal, we exposed 22 healthy male participants to a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test. Then, participants had to perform a complex computer task for 60 minutes and to rate their flow-experience on the Flow Short-Scale directly after task completion. During the experiment, cortisol samples were taken every 15 minutes, and heart rate variability measures were assessed by continuous electrocardiography. We found an inverted u-shaped relationship of flow-experience with indices of sympathetic arousal and cortisol, whereas parasympathetic indices of heart rate control during stress were linearly and positively correlated with flow-experience. Our results suggest that moderate sympathetic arousal and HPA-axis activation and possibly a co-activation of both branches of the autonomic nervous system characterize task-related flow-experience.

Research article

A review of definitions of fatigue – And a step towards a whole definition

Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Volume 29, 2015, pp. 48-56

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Despite its importance to health and safety, there is a long history of disagreement about how to operationalize fatigue when studying exertion in human transport operators. The current article reviews existing definitions, and consequently proposes a new definition as a step forward. A consideration of everyday use of the term finds that people often seem to use fatigue to describe a sensation related to exertion. Formal definitions of fatigue can be divided into a few broad definitions, capturing experiential, physiological and performance aspects of the construct, and many narrow definitions, focusing only on one or two of these aspects. Most existing definitions do not account explicitly for the role of sleep drives and sleepiness. They also fail to account for a wide range of factors associated with transport operator exertion, such as motivation and individual, organizational and environmental factors. Each of these points is assimilated in the derivation of a new “whole definition” of fatigue, in which the experience of human operator fatigue is a central aspect of the fatigue process. Although multidimensional and diffuse, the evolved definition does not detract from the measurement and study of limited aspects of fatigue. Rather, by describing the dynamic complexity of fatigue, it may help make explicit what different studies do or do not measure or account for in terms of the different aspects of fatigue. It is claimed that the proposed definition could be used to help harmonise attempts to study and tackle fatigue in transport health and safety contexts.

Research article

Relationships between Pupil Diameter and Neuronal Activity in the Locus Coeruleus, Colliculi, and Cingulate Cortex

Neuron, Volume 89, Issue 1, 2016, pp. 221-234

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Changes in pupil diameter that reflect effort and other cognitive factors are often interpreted in terms of the activity of norepinephrine-containing neurons in the brainstem nucleus locus coeruleus (LC), but there is little direct evidence for such a relationship. Here, we show that LC activation reliably anticipates changes in pupil diameter that either fluctuate naturally or are driven by external events during near fixation, as in many psychophysical tasks. This relationship occurs on as fine a temporal and spatial scale as single spikes from single units. However, this relationship is not specific to the LC. Similar relationships, albeit with delayed timing and different reliabilities across sites, are evident in the inferior and superior colliculus and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex. Because these regions are interconnected with the LC, the results suggest that non-luminance-mediated changes in pupil diameter might reflect LC-mediated coordination of neuronal activity throughout some parts of the brain.

Research article

Visual attention and cognitive performance in sheep

Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 206, 2018, pp. 52-58

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Cognitive probes are increasingly being used as an inferred measure of the emotional (and thus welfare) status of the animal. This reflects the bidirectional and interactive nature of emotional and cognitive systems. To date, cognitive paradigms have focused on how the emotional system biases expected outcome of prospective actions within goal-orientated scenarios. Evidence, however, suggests that negative affective state can also modulate attentional mechanisms. Measuring attention alongside other current tests of cognitive bias may provide greater resolution in the measurement of animal welfare. As a starting point for developing cognitive tasks of attentional control, we decided to assess the basic relationship between visual attention and cognitive performance in a farm animal species (sheep).

Variation in visual attention and cognitive performance was sought through testing of four different breeds of upland and lowland sheep (Beulah, Bluefaced Leicester, Texel and Suffolk; n = 15/breed) on a visual attention task and a two-choice visual discrimination task (to measure cognitive performance).

Cognitive performance and visual attention differed significantly between breeds (F 3,46 = 4.70, p = 0.006 and F3,5o = 6.05, p < 0.001 respectively). The least visually attentive breed of sheep (Blue face Leicester) had the lowest level of cognitive performance and the most visually attentive breed (Suffolk) had the highest level of cognitive performance. A weak but significant relationship between vigilance/fearfulness and visual attention was also observed (t44 = 3.91, p = <0.001; r2 = 0.23) that appeared to adhere to the Yerkes-Dodson law, with both high and low levels of vigilance/fearfulness having a negative effect on visual attention. These results demonstrate a discernible relationship between visual attention and cognitive performance. This provides a basis for further exploring attention systems in the context of changes in animal affective state and thus animal welfare.

What is the Yerkes

Which of the following describes the Yerkes

Which of the following is the best example of the Yerkes

What theory says simple tasks are performed best when arousal levels are relatively high while complex tasks are best performed when arousal is lower?