Vigilance and Error Detection in an Automated Command and Control Environment

This study focused on improving vigilance performance through developing methods to arouse subjects to the possibility of errors in a data manipulation information warfare attack. The study suggests that by continuously applying arousal stimuli, subjects would retain initially high vigilance levels thereby avoiding the vigilance decrement phenomenon and improving error detection. The research focused on which methods were the most effective as well the impact of age upon the arousability of the subjects. Further the implications of vigilance and vigilance decrement for correct detections as well as productivity were explored. The study used a simulation experiment to provide a vigilance task in a reality-based information warfare environment. The results of the study suggest that stimuli type and age do impact arousal, although stimuli type had the greater effect. Also, moderate support was found to indicate that arousal does affect vigilance and vigilance decrement. However, the final analysis revealed that it was the arousal-vigilance interaction that had the greatest impact on correct detection and productivity.