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Introduction
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February 2016 - present
Publications
Publications (9)
Despite widespread use in clinical and experimental contexts, debate continues over whether or not the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) successfully measures sustained attention. Altering physical aspects of the response movement required to SART stimuli may help identify whether performance is a better measure of perceptual decoupling,...
Forty-five participants performed a vigilance task during which they were required to respond to a critical signal at a local feature level, while the global display was altered between groups (either a circle, a circle broken apart and reversed, or a reconnected figure). The shape in two of the groups formed a configurative whole (the circle and r...
The sustained attention to response task (SART) usefulness as a measure of sustained attention has been questioned. The SART may instead be a better measure of other psychological processes and could prove useful in understanding some real-world behaviours. Thirty participants completed four Go/No-Go response tasks much like the SART, with Go-stimu...
The abbreviated vigilance task can quickly generate vigilance decrements, which has been argued is due to depletion of cognitive resources needed to sustain performance. Researchers suggest inclusion of rest breaks within vigilance tasks improve overall performance (Helton & Russell, 2015; Ross, Russell, & Helton, 2014), while different types of br...
The impact of anxiety-provoking stimuli on the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997), and response inhibition more generally, is currently unclear. Participants completed four SARTs embedded with picture stimuli of two levels of emotion (negative or neutral) and two levels of task-relevance...
Objective: We investigated whether losses of inhibitory control could be responsible for some friendly-fire incidents.
Background: Several factors are commonly cited to explain friendly-fire incidents, but failure of inhibitory control has not yet been explored. The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) could be a valid model for inhibition f...
Performance on the sustained attention to response task (SART) is often characterized by a speed-accuracy trade-off, and SART performance may be influenced by strategic factors (Head and Helton Conscious Cogn 22: 913-919, 2013). Previous research indicates a significant difference between reliable and unreliable warning cues on response times and e...
Dogs have attracted the attention of biomimetic roboticists, for example, Sony’s Aibo. Properly designed robots may be able to elicit similar perceptions as dogs. It is important then to analyze the attitudes that people have towards dogs, in particular salient features like breed-membership. In the present paper we developed an electronic question...
Losses of inhibitory control may be partly responsible for some friendly fire incidents. The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997) may provide an appropriate empirical model for this. The current investigation aimed to provide an ecologically valid application of the SART to a small arms sim...
Projects
Project (1)
The abbreviated vigilance task can quickly generate vigilance decrements, which has been
argued is due to depletion of cognitive resources needed to sustain performance.
Researchers suggest inclusion of rest breaks within vigilance tasks improve overall performance
(Helton & Russell, 2015; Ross, Russell, & Helton, 2014), while different types of breaks
demonstrate different effects. Some literature suggests exposure to natural movements/
stimuli helps restore attention (Herzog, Black, Fountaine, & Knotts, 1997; Kaplan, 1995).
Participants were randomly assigned to one experimental condition: dog video breaks, robot
video breaks, countdown breaks or continuous vigilance. We assessed task performance and
subjective reports of stress/workload. The continuous group displayed worst performance,
suggesting breaks help restore attention. The dog videos did not affect performance, however,
decreased reports of distress. These results support the importance of rest breaks and
acknowledge the benefit of natural stimuli for promoting wellbeing/stress relief, overall suggesting
performance and wellbeing may be independent, which warrants future studies
