TEAM PERFORMANCE ON MONITORING TASKS - AN EXAMINATION OF DECISION ERRORS IN CONTEXTS REQUIRING SUSTAINED ATTENTION

The purpose of this study was to examine individual and team performan ce in situations requiring sustained attention. Eighty research partic ipants arrayed in 20 four-person teams worked for 2 separate 3-hr sess ions on a naval-command-and-control simulation. The results of the stu dy replicated the past literature on the vigilance decrement and exten ded the literature by documenting a postcritical signal decrement as w ell. The study also showed that problems in the area of sustained atte ntion generalize from situations involving individual decision makers to contexts where decisions are made by teams.