AUTOMATED INSTRUCTION FOR VIGILANCE TRAINING

Compared the performance of 34 male undergraduates trained in a visual monitoring task with an autoinstructional device with that of Ss trained by practice alone. The experimental group had 3 50-min training sessions on a device which included the standard monitoring task, but allowed S to select his signal schedule and call for immediate knowledge of results, or signal cueing (prompting), or both, and to test himself with no training aids available. Subsequent testing on the standard task revealed that Ss trained with autoinstruction showed a much higher detection rate (p < .01) than control Ss with no increase in commissive errors. Reasons for the success of autoinstruction in vigilance training are discussed. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.