Alertness in Sustained, Selective, Alternating, and Divided Attention

In this module, I believe the most significant challenge to alertness is sustained attention. If you have ever driven a car, you know that you are driving the vehicle to depart point A to arrive at point B safely. While driving, you are attempting to maintain sustained attention to your driving to ensure you are safely operating the vehicle. You may notice that you sometimes daydream, or your mind may wander while driving, and you forget how to arrive at your destination. The attempt to maintain sustained attention eventually led to a loss of focus, and ultimately, your mind wanders.

According to Fortenbaugh, DeGutis, & Esterman (2017), sustained attention does not have a standard timeframe to describe it. There is no consensus among the neuroscience community to define how long sustained attention is (Forenbaugh et al., 2017). Individuals tend to wander off their tasks when they focus on one area over a long time (Forenbaugh et al., 2017). Due to a wandering mind and a lack of focus on the task at hand, it can be difficult to stay alert and pay attention to what is happening right in front of an individual. This inability to focus can cause a decrease in alertness.

To combat the wandering mind for Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) operators, Cognitive Human Machine Interfaces (CHMI) has been designed to change over time based on the tasks required of the operators (Lim, Ramasamy, Gardi, Kistan, Sabatini, 2018). The CHMI adapts to the operator workload to assist them in completing tasks as the mission does or does not change over time (Lim et al., 2018). Using a CHMI, it is possible to keep the mind from wandering as the CHMI can change to adapt for the pilot and keep them engaged by showing specific systems as the mission slows down and speeds up.

Alternating and divided attention has shown to increase task performance despite an increase in task demands (Forenbaugh et al., 2017). This indicates that individuals are continuously monitoring and Focusing on their assigned tasks. By focusing on the task at hand by keeping the mind busy, Individuals maintain a higher alert than those that attempt sustained attention. Individuals that are Cognitive process would maintain higher alertness as the individual is actively listening or looking for specific pieces of information.

References

Fortenbaugh, F. C., DeGutis, J., & Esterman, M. (2017). Recent theoretical, neural, and clinical advances in sustained attention research. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1396(1), 70-91. doi:10.1111/nyas.13318

Lim, Y., Ramasamy, S., Gardi, A., Kistan, T., & Sabatini, R. (2018). Cognitive human-machine interfaces and interactions for unmanned aircraft. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, 91(3-4), 755-774. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/10.1007/s10846-017-0648-9