Revised Space Fortress: A validation study

We describe briefly the redevelopment of Space Fortress (SF), a research tool widely used to study training of complex tasks involving both cognitive and motor skills, to be executed on currentgeneration systems with significantly extended capabilities, and then compare the performance of human participants on an original PC version of Space Fortress (SF) with the revised Space Fortress (RSF). Participants trained on SF or RSF for 10 sets of eight 3-min practice trials and two 3-min test trials. They then took tests involving retention, resistance to secondary task interference, and transfer to a different control system. They then switched from SF to RSF or from RSF to SF for 2 sets of final tests and completed rating scales comparing RSF and SF. Slight differences were predicted on the basis of a scoring error in the original version of SF used and on slightly more precise joystick control in RSF. The predictions were supported. The SF group started better but did worse when they transferred to RSF. Despite the disadvantage of having to be cautious in generalizing from RSF to SF, we conclude that RSF has many advantages, which include accommodating new PC hardware and new training techniques. A monograph that presents the methodology used in creating RSF, details on its performance and validation, and directions on how to download free copies of the system may be downloaded from www .psychonomic.org/archive/.