STAR: A unique embedded performance assessment technique

STAR (The Strategic and Tactical Assessment Record) is a versatile research tool designed to evaluate the effects of sustained performance and other stressors on integrated, complex cognitive functioning. This completely automated task is presented in the form of a highly motivating computer game. However, unlike typical computer games, successful performance of STAR depends on an individual’s ability to rapidly and accurately assess risk/benefit ratios in a variety of situations, and on the skilled use of an array of multipurpose control systems. STAR is unique in that approximately 80 performance measures are unobtrusively embedded in the operations required to “play the game”; no obvious performance assessment interferes with task presentation. STAR provides multiple measures of psychomotor function, attention, memory, information processing, decision making, risk-taking behavior, subjective state, errors, and error paths. In this report, we describe STAR, and summarize two preliminary experiments designed to separately evaluate the effects of task difficulty and task stress level on complex performance.