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Updated: Aug 30, 2026

A Rapidly Incremented Tethered-Swimming Maximal Protocol for Cardiorespiratory Assessment of Swimmers
Published on: January 28, 2020
An information theory analysis of duration of lifeguards' scanning
W Andrew Harrell1, Jennifer A Boisvert
1University of Alberta, Center for Experimental Sociology, Edmonton, Canada.
Abstract:
Observers recorded the duration of scanning by six lifeguards in three indoor swimming pools. Duration of scanning was significantly predicted by the absolute numbers of child swimmers (< 17 years) in the pools and when numbers of child swimmers were represented in terms of bits of information. Duration of scanning increased as a linear function of both numbers of children and child bits of information. These results are interpreted in terms of the Hick-Hyman law of information theory. Lifeguards appear to simplify the task of information processing and decision-making by concentrating on children as a more at-risk group of swimmers. Duration of scanning was not significantly related to changes in number of adult swimmers.
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