State anxiety, performance accuracy, and work pace in a simulated pharmacy dispensing task

This study examined the effects of scores on state anxiety on overall accuracy of performance and speed of working in a simulated pharmacy dispensing task. 75 undergraduates worked in a simulated pharmacy environment, designed by Schell and Grasha in 1998, to fill 42 mock orders for simulated pharmacy items. Participants' accuracy and work pace in the simulation, presimulation stress, and postsimulation perceived workload and state anxiety were measured. Analysis indicated that state anxiety and overall accuracy were strongly related. State anxiety appears to be one of the best predictors of errors in the simulated pharmacy dispensing task found so far, while the lack of relationship between work pace and accuracy was confirmed. Work pace predicted accuracy, indirectly, but only after statistically removing the effects of anxiety, task frustration, significant-other stress, and grade point average.     

Improving accuracy in an error detection task via task sequence

The intent of this study was to determine whether performance on an error detection task and a series of cognitive search and memory tasks would be affected if performed serially. Fifty-six participants were assigned into two experimental groups, defined by whether they performed the error detection task or the cognitive tasks first. Measures of hit rates and false alarms were taken for the error detection task, and the perceived workload of both tasks was measured immediately following completion. In the group that did the cognitive tasks first, a significant relationship between perceptions of mental demand on the cognitive tasks and subsequent performance on the error detection task was found. Also, false alarms in error detection were correlated with perceptions of time pressure and frustration measured after the error detection task. These results suggest that a mentally demanding initial task may facilitate performance in a subsequent cognitively-based task. Parts of this paper were presented at the American Psychological Society's annual convention in Atlanta, GA in June 2003. The author thanks Abbie Woodruff and Brandon Corbin for their work on the original presentation and their help in data collection, and Blaine Browne for helpful editorial comments.     

Improving accuracy in an error detection task via task sequence

The intent of this study was to determine whether performance on an error detection task and a series of cognitive search and memory tasks would be affected if performed serially. Fifty-six participants were assigned into two experimental groups, defined by whether they performed the error detection task or the cognitive tasks first. Measures of hit rates and false alarms were taken for the error detection task, and the perceived workload of both tasks was measured immediately following completion. In the group that did the cognitive tasks first, a significant relationship between perceptions of mental demand on the cognitive tasks and subsequent performance on the error detection task was found. Also, false alarms in error detection were correlated with perceptions of time pressure and frustration measured after the error detection task. These results suggest that a mentally demanding initial task may facilitate performance in a subsequent cognitively-based task. Parts of this paper were presented at the American Psychological Society's annual convention in Atlanta, GA in June 2003. The author thanks Abbie Woodruff and Brandon Corbin for their work on the original presentation and their help in data collection, and Blaine Browne for helpful editorial comments.     

Workload and stress in vigilance: the impact of display format and task type

Signal salience was manipulated using configural and object displays to examine their effects on the performance, workload, and stress of vigilance. Improving performance and reducing the workload and stress of vigilance are crucial concerns. Signal salience improves performance and reduces stress, but to date there have been no salience manipulations using configural displays in a vigilance task. Two task types (individual variable monitoring and midpoint identification) and 3 display formats (bar graph-different baselines, bar graph-common baseline, and a polygon graph display) were examined. Configural displays improved performance in the midpoint identification task but not in the individual variable monitoring task. Workload depended on the form of display features (bar graph vs. polygon). Stress increased across all conditions, but task and display format did not affect stress. The midpoint identification task was associated with more emotion-focused and avoidant coping. Increasing signal salience in a vigilance task using configural displays with emergent features or physical contours can improve performance and reduce the decrement. These displays may not reduce the stress of vigilance or encourage task-focused coping. Therefore, there may be hidden costs to vigilance performance even when highly salient configural displays are used.     

Picture-word differences in a sentence verification task

Effects of picture-word format were investigated with four problem-solving items. In Experiment 1, picture-word input was presented for 8 sec followed by a test sentence that included verbatim and inference statements. Subjects made a true/false reaction time to the test sentence. In Experiment 2, the input remained on the screen while the test sentence was presented with varied stimulus onset asynchronies from 0 to 1,000 msec. Results showed that responses to pictures were faster than responses to words, and the format effect was larger with inference than with verbatim sentences. The picture advantage seemed to be due to the nature of the input and how information is extracted from it. The findings are discussed within the context of text-processing theories (Glenberg & Langston, 1992; Larkin & Simon, 1987).     

Contextual effects in a metaphor verification task

The verbal transformation effect, an auditory illusion in which physically invariant repetitive verbal input undergoes perceptual transformation, has traditionally been interpreted as a speech-specific phenomenon. Experiment 1 showed that the effect is not limited to speech, but occurs in non-speech categories such as music and other complex everyday sounds, with transformations being comparable in nature and number to those in speech. Experiment 2 provided evidence for an alternative, broader-based view of the phenomenon, involving spreading activation through a multidimensional associative network of mental representations, by demonstrating that creating or activating pre-existing links between a single complex non-verbal stimulus and other representations by priming led to an increase in transformations.     

Minimizing error in measurement of error: a proposed method for calculation of error in a two-dimensional motor task

Traditional one-dimensional error scores are still consistently used in research on motor learning to quantify two-dimensional error; however, the inherent differences in two-dimensional tasks render that application inappropriate and often misleading. Consequently, the purpose of this paper was to propose a novel method of presenting errors, which more precisely represents the accuracy, direction, and variability of error in two-dimensional settings. Although closely related to several alternatives for representing errors, the methodology used and the results obtained provide a more accurate procedure for pinpointing critical trends in what have been commonly referred to as AE (absolute error), VE (variable error), CE (constant error), and E (total variability). The proposed measurements of AVE (adjusted variable error), DE (directional error), TSE (total spread of error), and RE (radial error) provide composite error scores carrying a variety of information about performance on two-dimensional tasks. Formulas and examples are provided to facilitate computation and enhance understanding of the proposed scores.     

Some types of error in a choice response task

Errors from a serial response task involving single-finger responses to alphabetic stimuli are analysed and discussed in relation to findings which have been reported from tasks with more compatible stimulus-response relationships. Errors are divided into three distinguishable subsets and in each case found to have longer latencies than correct responses. Those which result from mirroring the required response about the centre of the hand are found to resist elimination during practice and their frequency seems to depend on the type of code used. In all cases error correction times are faster than the times to make a correct response but mirror errors and errors involving a finger adjacent to the correct response are corrected faster than other errors. The findings are discussed in relation to the theory of choice reaction time and error correction.     

Individual differences and task format in sentence verification

This study examined the effects of task format and individual differences in cognitive ability on performance of the sentence-picture verification task. Four groups of subjects were selected on the basis of their scores on psychometric tests of verbal and spatial ability: low verbal/low spatial, high verbal/high spatial, low verbal/high spatial, and high verbal/low spatial. Subjects completed four different versions of the sentence verification task, each version differing in terms of the interval between sentence and picture presentation. The results confirmed the importance of both task format and spatial ability in determining the cognitive strategy employed by subjects in carrying out the task. The finding of principal interest, however, was that spatial ability was the most significant determinant of strategy choice, and that low spatial subjects made substantial use of linguistic strategies under task formats designed to encourage imaginal strategies.     

A constituent comparison model of a picture-first verification task

In a recent critique of Carpenter and Just’s (1975) verification model, Tanenhaus, Carroll, and Bever (1976) pointed out that the estimates of the comparison parameter of the model varied considerably among tasks. In particular, estimates of this parameter were higher for picture-first than for sentence-first sentence-picture verification tasks. The picture-first estimates, however, were based upon an analysis of only a subset of the trials: namely, those in which the preposition “above” was embedded in the sentence. When a more comprehensive model is applied to the data of picture-first experiments, the estimates of the comparison operation are comparable to those based on sentence-first tasks.     

Psychological stress,appraisal, emotion and Cardiovascular response in a public speaking task

Forty-three undergraduates (30 males, 13 females) prepared and performed a speech task (stressor) or a reading task (no-stressor control). Preparing to speak led to greater threat appraisal, negative emotion, and cardiovascular (CV) response than preparing to read aloud, particularly in speech anxious individuals. Delivering the speech, however, did not result in an increment in CV response over and above preparation. Although threat appraisals could not explain the effect of stress on CV response during task preparation, negative emotion accounted for over half of the effect. These data support the hypothesis that CV response in these studies is at least partially accounted for by psychological processes (stressor-specific anxiety and negative emotional response) and suggests that these processes may be best studied during a period of stressor anticipation.     

Conflict and error adaptation in the Simon task

We present recent empirical and theoretical advances in conflict and error monitoring in the Simon task. On the basis of the adaptation by binding account for conflict adaptation and the orienting account for post-error slowing, we predict a dissociation between conflict and error monitoring. This prediction is tested and confirmed as conflict adaptation is task-specific while post-error slowing is not.     

Ear asymmetry in a dichotic detection task

Pairs of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables were presented dichotically to Ss who were instructed to monitor for the presence of a target CV which could occur in either ear. Ss responded by depressing a response button ; reaction time (RT) was also recorded. Right ear targets were detected 6.2% more frequently, on the average, than left ear targets and had an average RT 50 msec quicker than their left ear counterparts. These results demonstrate the existence of a right ear superiority in dichotic listening when a nonverbal motor response measure is used, supporting the contention that the ear asymmetry phenomenon is truly perceptual in nature and not merely due to the lateralization of verbal output. Two alternative explanations of the RT difference between left and right ear targets are offered. One attributes this difference to the time necessary for intercortical transfer of right hemisphere information, while the second holds that it is due to the longer times needed by the right hemisphere to process information projected to it.