Task Engagement and the Vigilance Decrement Revisited: Expanding Upon the Work of Joel S. Warm Using a Semantic Vigilance Paradigm

The goal of the present study is twofold: (1) demonstrate the importance of measuring and understanding the relationship between task engagement and vigilance performance, and (2) celebrate the work of Joel S. Warm and expand upon his previous research in two semantic vigilance paradigms.

The importance of measuring task engagement in cognitive and sensory vigilance tasks has been well documented. But to date, our understanding of the effects of task engagement on semantic vigilance performance is limited.

Seventy-three participants completed either a standard semantic vigilance task or a lure semantic vigilance task. Participants also completed subjective measures of workload and stress.

The results indicated that changes in task engagement are associated with correct detection performance. Changes in task engagement may be related to individual differences in the distress associated with performing semantic vigilance tasks.

In line with the work of Warm and his colleagues (Dember, Warm, Bowers, & Lanzetta, 1984), participants who reported increased task engagement after the vigil outperformed their peers who noted decreased task engagement upon conclusion of the task. Participants reporting increases in engagement with the semantic vigilance tasks also reported significantly greater distress pretask, but not posttask. Instead, increases in postvigil distress were driven by the task to which participants were assigned, not task engagement.

The present study has several implications for applied settings that involve long duration semantic processing or semantic target identification. Such real-world tasks include aviation, cyber threat detection and analysis, driving, and reading.