title: Detecting threat-related intentional actions of others: effects of image quality, response mode, and target cuing on vigilance.
abstract: Three experiments examined the vigilance performance of participants watching videos depicting intentional actions of an individual's hand reaching for and grasping an object--involving transporting or using either a gun or a hairdryer--in order to detect infrequent threat-related actions. Participants indicated detection of target actions either manually or by withholding response. They also rated their subjective mental workload before and after each vigilance task. Irrespective of response mode, the detection rate of intentional threats declined over time on task and subjective workload increased, but only under visually degraded viewing conditions. This vigilance decrement was attenuated by temporal cues that were 75% valid in predicting a subsequent target action and eliminated with 100% valid cues. The findings indicate that detection of biological motion targets, and threat-related intentional actions in particular, although not attention sensitive under normal viewing conditions, is subject to vigilance decrement under degraded viewing conditions. The results are compatible with the view that the decrement in detecting threat-related intentional actions reflects increasing failure of attention allocation processes over time.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444, USA. rparasur@gmu.edu
authors.forename: Raja
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Parasuraman
authors.forename: Ewart
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: de Visser
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Clarke
authors.forename: W Ryan
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: McGarry
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hussey
authors.forename: Tyler
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shaw
authors.forename: James C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Thompson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors