Measuring Sustained Attention and Perceived Workload.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Human factors engineering
• Child development

Background:

• Previous research shows adults experience performance decrements and increased workload under spatial uncertainty.
• Children have demonstrated an ability to assess workload in previous studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effects of spatial uncertainty on vigilance performance and perceived workload in elementary school children.
• To examine the influence of field dependence/independence (FD/I) and sex on these factors.

Main Methods:

• Children performed a vigilance task with low (center screen) and high (four quadrants) spatial uncertainty.
• Performance metrics included perceptual sensitivity and response latency variability (RT^SD).
• Workload was assessed using a modified NASA Task Load Index.

Main Results:

• High spatial uncertainty led to lower perceptual sensitivity, greater RT^SD, and higher response criteria in children.
• Field-dependent children exhibited poorer performance and higher workload than field-independent children.
• Boys reported higher workload than girls, irrespective of objective performance.

Conclusions:

• Spatial uncertainty significantly impairs vigilance performance and increases workload in children.
• Individual differences (FD/I, sex) play a role in performance and workload perception.
• The findings support the development of educational ergonomics tools to identify children under high workload.