Extending the detection response task to simultaneously measure cognitive and visual task demands
URL: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LfO53RQAAAAJ
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Summary
Cooper, Castro, & Strayer (2016, HFES Proceedings) tested whether a modified Detection Response Task could simultaneously index visual and cognitive task demand. A horizontal tracking task on a 42-inch driving-simulator display was paired with a center-stack visual task at three inter-stimulus intervals (ISI=15, 10, 5 s) plus a baseline. Experiment 1 (N=20, 14F/6M, 18-36 yr) paired a head-mounted DRT with a remote DRT - both selectively tracked cognitive (RT) but not visual (hit rate) demand because the LED was too salient. Experiment 2 (N=27, 17F/10M) substituted a tactile DRT plus a custom 'fading' remote DRT with a red color mask that ramped through orange before button-press detection.
Key finding
A dual-DRT configuration combining a tactile DRT (cognitive demand) with a fading-color remote LED (visual demand) can simultaneously and selectively dissociate visual and cognitive task demand, where the standard high-salience LED DRT is sensitive only to cognitive load.
Methodology
simulator
Sample size: 20
Quality score: 5 / 5