Social Facilitation and Its Effects on the Workload and Stress of a Vigilance Task
Presentation Type
Poster
Abstract
Vigilance, or sustained attention, refers to the capability of an individual to preserve focus over extended periods of time. Typically, vigilance tasks are associated with high levels of post-task workload and stress, which manifests as less task engagement, more distress, and more worry. As research has indicated, there are many factors that affect vigilance and its associated workload and stress (i.e. signal saliency, task difficulty, etc.). However, one factor that has been neglected in previous research on workload, stress, and anxiety is the presence of a supervisor person during the task. Therefore, the purpose of the present investigation is to determine how the presence of a supervisory figure influences perceived workload, stress, and anxiety that is associated with vigilance experiments. It was hypothesized that the presence of a supervisory figure would decrease workload and distress, and would increase the levels of anxiety, when compared to a non-supervisor.
Social Facilitation and Its Effects on the Workload and Stress of a Vigilance Task
Vigilance, or sustained attention, refers to the capability of an individual to preserve focus over extended periods of time. Typically, vigilance tasks are associated with high levels of post-task workload and stress, which manifests as less task engagement, more distress, and more worry. As research has indicated, there are many factors that affect vigilance and its associated workload and stress (i.e. signal saliency, task difficulty, etc.). However, one factor that has been neglected in previous research on workload, stress, and anxiety is the presence of a supervisor person during the task. Therefore, the purpose of the present investigation is to determine how the presence of a supervisory figure influences perceived workload, stress, and anxiety that is associated with vigilance experiments. It was hypothesized that the presence of a supervisory figure would decrease workload and distress, and would increase the levels of anxiety, when compared to a non-supervisor.