Stress appraisals and training performance on a complex laboratory task.

OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether training performance on a complex laboratory task differs for trainees whose stress appraisals denote challenge or threat. BACKGROUND: Past research outside a training context found better performance on tasks when stress appraisals denoted challenge (in which perceived situational demands are commensurate with perceived resources) as opposed to threat (in which perceived coping resources fall short of the demands of the stressor). METHOD: College students performed Space Fortress during 80 3-min practice trials, 20 tests, and posttests (retention, transfer, secondary task interference). Stress appraisals were measured with a two-item scale (Experiments 1-3) or an eight-item scale (Experiment 3) with (Study 1) or without (Experiments 2 and 3) brief hands-on experience. RESULTS: In all experiments, training improved performance and challenged trainees outperformed threatened trainees throughout training as well as on some baseline and posttraining tests. CONCLUSIONS: These studies are the first to document that stress appraisals predict training performance. They suggest that little information about a task is needed for appraisals to account for a significant amount of variance (11%) in training performance. Investigating the dynamic interplay of stress appraisals and training will increase the understanding of stress appraisals and of training. APPLICATION: Stress appraisals may improve training if used as a screening tool and/or by implementing interventions aimed at changing appraisals from threat to challenge.

Three-dimensional spatial skill training in a simulated space station: random vs. blocked designs.

BACKGROUND: Astronauts floating inside a spacecraft must be able to recall the direction to surrounding visual landmarks, regardless of their viewing perspective. If 3D orientation skills are taught preflight, should perspective sequences be blocked or randomized? Can standard spatial skill tests predict performance? METHODS: Undergraduates (40 men and 40 women; ages 19-24) learned 3D spatial relationships among landmark pictures in a cubic chamber simulating a space station node. Subjects learned to predict picture directions when told one picture's direction (the one behind them) and the subject's simulated roll orientation, which was changed between trials by rotating pictures. The dependent variable was the proportion of correct predictions. A between group (n=40 per group) independent variable was training type (random vs. blocked sequencing of perspectives). Experiment phase (familiarization, training, transfer, and 2 retention phases) was a within group variable. Subjects also took three standard spatial skill tests: Card Rotation, Cube Comparison, and Group Imbedded Figures. RESULTS: As hypothesized, during training, performance for the random group (0.56) was worse than the blocked group (0.83); during transfer, the random group (0.75) was better than the blocked group (0.56); during retention-i, the random group (0.70) was better than the blocked group (0.55); and during retention-2, the random group (0.76) was better than the blocked group (0.65). Spatial skill tests correlated differently across the two groups, indicating that random sequencing elicits different skills. CONCLUSION: Random presentation enhances 3D spatial skill transfer and retention. Standard spatial tests can predict performance and have the potential to customize training.

Revised Space Fortress: a validation study.

We describe briefly the redevelopment of Space Fortress (SF), a research tool widely used to study training of complex tasks involving both cognitive and motor skills, to be executed on current-generation systems with significantly extended capabilities, and then compare the performance of human participants on an original PC version of Space Fortress (SF) with the revised Space Fortress (RSF). Participants trained on SF or RSF for 10 sets of eight 3-min practice trials and two 3-min test trials. They then took tests involving retention, resistance to secondary task interference, and transfer to a different control system. They then switched from SF to RSF or from RSF to SF for 2 sets of final tests and completed rating scales comparing RSF and SE Slight differences were predicted on the basis of a scoring error in the original version of SF used and on slightly more precise joystick control in RSF. The predictions were supported. The SF group started better but did worse when they transferred to RSE Despite the disadvantage of having to be cautious in generalizing from RSF to SF, we conclude that RSF has many advantages, which include accommodating new PC hardware and new training techniques. A monograph that presents the methodology used in creating RSF, details on its performance and validation, and directions on how to download free copies of the system may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.

Three dimensional spatial memory and learning in real and virtual environments.

Human orientation and spatial cognition partly depends on our ability to remember sets of visual landmarks and imagine their relationship to us from a different viewpoint. We normally make large body rotations only about a single axis which is aligned with gravity. However, astronauts who try to recognize environments rotated in 3 dimensions report that their terrestrial ability to imagine the relative orientation of remembered landmarks does not easily generalize. The ability of human subjects to learn to mentally rotate a simple array of six objects around them was studied in 1-G laboratory experiments. Subjects were tested in a cubic chamber (n = 73) and a equivalent virtual environment (n = 24), analogous to the interior of a space station node module. A picture of an object was presented at the center of each wall. Subjects had to memorize the spatial relationships among the six objects and learn to predict the direction to a specific object if their body were in a specified 3D orientation. Percent correct learning curves and response times were measured. Most subjects achieved high accuracy from a given viewpoint within 20 trials, regardless of roll orientation, and learned a second view direction with equal or greater ease. Performance of the subject group that used a head mounted display/head tracker was qualitatively similar to that of the second group tested in a physical node simulator. Body position with respect to gravity had a significant but minor effect on performance of each group, suggesting that results may also apply to weightless situations. A correlation was found between task performance measures and conventional paper-and-pencil tests of field independence and 2&3 dimensional figure rotation ability.

Training, transfer, and retention of three-dimensional spatial memory in virtual environments.

Human orientation requires one to remember and visualize spatial arrangements of landmarks from different perspectives. Astronauts have reported difficulties remembering relationships between environmental landmarks when imagined in arbitrary 3D orientations. The present study investigated the effects of strategy training on humans' 1) ability to infer their orientation from landmarks presented ahead and below, 2) performance when subsequently learning a different array, and 3) retention of configurational knowledge over time. On the first experiment day, 24 subjects were tested in a virtual cubic chamber in which a picture of an animal was drawn on each wall. Through trial-by-trial exposures, they had to memorize the spatial relationships among the six pictures around them and learn to predict the direction to a specific picture when facing any view direction, and in any roll orientation. Half of the subjects ("strategy group") were taught methods for remembering picture groupings, while the remainder received no such training ("control group"). After learning one picture array, the procedure was repeated in a second. Accuracy (% correct) and response time learning curves were measured. Performance for the second array and configurational memory of both arrays were also retested 1, 7, and 30 days later. Results showed that subjects "learned how to learn" this generic 3D spatial memory task regardless of their relative orientation to the environment, that ability and configurational knowledge was retained for at least a month, that figure rotation ability and field independence correlate with performance, and that teaching subjects specific strategies in advance significantly improves performance. Training astronauts to perform a similar generic 3D spatial memory task, and suggesting strategies in advance, may help them orient in three dimensions.