Page No.83-91
Indramani L. Singh, Hari Om Sharma and Anju L. Singh
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
The present study examines the effect of training on workload in flight simulation
task performance. A 2(training) x 2(session) x 3(block) mixed factorial design was
used. Training was treated as between subjects factor, whereas sessions and
blocks were treated as within subject factors. A revised version of multi-attribute
task battery was used in this study. Thirty under graduate students of the Banaras
Hindu University served as subjects. Each subject was required to detect automation
malfunctions within stipulated time i.e. 10 sec. and to reset errors, if any, by pressing
a designated key. The performance was recorded in terms of accuracy of target
detection (hit rates), incorrect detection (false alarms) and reaction time. The
NASA-TLX (Hart & Staveland, 1988) was used for the assessment of workload
having six bipolar dimensions like mental demands, physical demands, temporal
demands, effort, frustration and own performance before and after a 30-min (short)
and a 60-min (long) sessions of manual training. Mean detection performance
showed higher hit rates in long training session than in short training session.
However, the mean difference between two training conditions was not found to be
significant. Thus results suggested that the amount of training did not affect subjects’
system-monitoring task performance under automated mode. The main effects of
session showed significant decrement in the detection of automation failures over
sessions. Results also indicated that subjects reported significantly higher temporal
workload between pre-and post test session in short training than long training
condition. Further subjects showed significantly high degree of frustration workload
in pre than post automated task performance in long training conditio
.