Physiological correlates of vigilance performance

Abstract

This research is an investigation of the relationships between several physiological measures and vigilance performance. Heart rate and sinus arrhythmia were measured throughout a 40-minute vigilance task for each of 15 subjects. Information processing rate, depth perception and critical flicker fusion frequency were measured before and after the task. Significant results were found by linear correlation techniques which showed pre-test depth perception and detection performance negatively correlated (r = .585, p < .05), pre-test critical flicker fusion frequency and detection performance positively correrlated r = .492, p < .05), and heart rate positively correlated with detection performance (r = .7703, p < .1).