Effects of anxiety,a cognitive secondary task,and expertise on gaze behavior and performance in a far aiming task

ObjectivePrevious studies focused on investigating the separate effects of anxiety, cognitive load, and expertise on perceptual-motor performance, but the combined effects of these factors have not been studied yet. The objective of the current study was to investigate these factors in combination.DesignEleven expert dart players and nine novices performed a dart throwing task in low-anxiety (LA) and high-anxiety (HA) conditions with and without a secondary task.MethodTo manipulate anxiety the dart throwing task was performed low (LA) and high (HA) on a climbing wall with and without the secondary counting backwards task. Performance and efficiency of task execution and gaze behavior were assessed.ResultsThe anxiety manipulation evoked a decrease in dart performance, but only for the novices. Increases in mental effort and dart times and a decrease in response rate on the secondary task were observed for both groups. This shows that there were decreases in processing efficiency with anxiety. Most important, the anxiety-induced decrease in performance for the novices was accompanied by final fixations on the target that were substantially shorter and deviated off the target earlier. The dual task did not affect performance.ConclusionAnxiety affects efficiency and sometimes performance in far aiming tasks. Changes are accompanied by changes in gaze behavior, particularly the final fixation on the target. All in all, findings provide support for Attentional Control Theory as a suitable framework to explain the effects of anxiety, a cognitive secondary task, and expertise in far aiming tasks.     

Team adaptability and task cohesion as resources to the non-linear dynamics of workload and sickness absenteeism in firefighter teams

ABSTRACT

The current study builds on the non-linear Dynamic Systems (NDS) perspective to test the assumption that change in sickness absenteeism is non-linear, and that such change is due to workload, team adaptability and task cohesion. Participants were 37 firefighter teams (n = 250 individuals) from a main European capital city. The research hypotheses were tested using SPSS and the “cusp” package, in the statistical software R. The results suggest that change in sickness absenteeism behaviours over time is non-linear, with the cusp catastrophe model predicting such behaviours better than the linear and logistic models. In our model, task cohesion functions as an asymmetry factor (i.e., the independent variable that determines the strength and discrepancy between the two stable states of the dependent variable) leading to a linear change in sickness absenteeism. Interestingly, both workload and team adaptability function as bifurcation (i.e., the independent variable that determines the change between the two stable states of the order parameter) and asymmetry factors leading to non-linear and linear change in sickness absenteeism over time. This study contributes to the growing evidence that incorporating the NDS perspective enables a better understanding of action teams, namely those working in extreme environments.