VIGILANCE PERFORMANCE AS A FUNCTION OF SIGNAL LOCATION AND DISTANCE

THE INVESTIGATION CONSISTED OF TWO SEPARATE EXPERIMENTS. IN THE FIRST EXPERIMENT THE EFFECTS OF SIGNAL DISTANCE ON VIGILANCE PERFORMANCE WAS DETERMINED. EIGHTEEN SUBJECTS WERE USED. A SUBJECT VIEWED FIVE BANKS OF SIGNAL LIGHTS WITH EACH BANK LOCATED PROGRESSIVELY FURTHER FROM HIM. IT WAS FOUND THAT SIGNAL DETECTION VARIED AS A FUNCTION OF THE DISTANCE IT WAS LOCATED FROM THE OBSERVER. SIGNALS ON THE BANK NEAREST THE OBSERVER WERE MISSED LESS FREQUENTLY THAN SIGNALS ON THE MORE DISTANT BANKS. THERE WAS A DIRECT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF SIGNALS MISSED AND THE DISTANCE OF THE SIGNALS FROM THE SUBJECT. THE SECOND EXPERIMENT WAS CONCERNED WITH VIGILANCE PERFORMANCE IN A SITUATION WHERE DISTANCE OF THE SIGNAL FROM THE OBSERVER WAS CONSTANT BUT THE LOCATION OF SIGNALS VARIED IN BOTH A HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL DIMENSION. EIGHTEEN SUBJECTS WERE TESTED. IT WAS FOUND THAT THEY MISSED MORE SIGNALS IN PERIPHERAL LOCATIONS AND ALSO MORE SIGNALS WERE MISSED THAT WERE PLACED IN THE UPPER LEVEL OF THE DISPLAY. IN BOTH EXPERIMENTS, NO RELATIONSHIP WAS FOUND TO EXIST BETWEEN THE AMOUNT OF TIME A SUBJECT HAD SPENT IN THE VIGILANCE SESSION AND LOCATION OF THE SIGNAL IN TERMS OF THE PROBABILITY OF DETECTING A GIVEN SIGNAL. /AUTHOR/

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Hpr, Bpr ?2
• Corporate Authors:

  University of South Dakota, Vermillion

  Vermillion, SD  United States  57069
• Authors:
  • Jones, H V
• Publication Date: 1965-6-16

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Detection and identification; Detectors; Distance; Experiments; Location; Performance; Signal lights; Signals; Testing; Vigilance
• Uncontrolled Terms: Observation
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00222533
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Bureau of Public Roads /US
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 1 1994 12:00AM