Abstract
Is activation theory useful or necessary for the analysis of long term performance on perceptual tasks? After criticizing the theory for being too broad and nonspecific, because even contradictory results would not embarrass it, this report illustrates the problem with data on human and animal vigilance. It is concluded that activation theory in several forms may be necessary to understand different phases of vigilance performance. The questions relevant for activation theory include the probable inhibition of observing behavior when an overload is established by eliciting observing at a high rate, the temporal conditioning of levels of arousal, and motor aspects of the emission of detection-indicating responses.
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