Abstract
Nowadays, there is a great need to investigate the effects of fatigue on physical as well as mental performance. The issues that are generally associated with extreme fatigue are that one can easily lose one’s focus while performing any particular activity whether it is physical or mental and this decreases one’s motivation to complete the task at hand efficiently and successfully. In the same line of thought, myriads of research studies posited the negative effects of fatigue on mental performance, and most techniques to induce fatigue to require normally long-time and repetitive visual search tasks. In this study, a visual search algorithm task was devised and customized using performance measures such as d’ (d-prime) and Speed Accuracy Trade-Off (SATF) as well as ROC analysis for classifier performance. The visual search algorithm consisted of distractors (L) and a target (T) whereby human participants had to press the appropriate keyboard button as fast as possible if they notice a target or not upon presentation of a visual stimulus. It was administered to human participants under laboratory conditions, and the reaction times, as well as accuracy of the participants, were monitored. It was found that the test image Size35Int255 was the best image to be used in terms of sensitivity and AUC (Area under Curve). Therefore, ongoing researches can use these findings to create their visual stimuli in such a way that the target and distractor images follow the size and intensity characteristics as found in this research.
Highlights
The visual search algorithm consisted of distractors (L) and a target (T) whereby human participants had to press the appropriate keyboard button as fast as possible if they notice a target or not upon presentation of a visual stimulus
Speed Accuracy Trade-Off (SATF) analysis was conducted on the test image Size35Int255 based on its high d’ and highest AUC values to observe the change in sensitivity with increasing reaction times of the participants
Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis proved to be a useful tool in distinguishing the effect of the different types of images on the subjects’ reaction times
Summary
It is characterized by decreased energy, motivation and difficult concentrating or difficulty in maintaining sustained attention and remaining alert to relevant stimuli appearing at unpredictable time points over long periods of time. It was found that as the duration of the mental fatiguing induced task increases, the number of misses and false alarms increase, and the response speed decreases [4] In these studies as well as those from research [5], participants were instructed to execute a task continuously for a long period of time, and their behavioural performances, reactions times and accuracy rates, were compared between the former and the latter of the mental fatigue induced experiment [6]. Factors that can induce fatigue in a short period of time can be a very boring/monotonous task, a bad/dark illuminating, night time, combination with physical fatigue and low-performance phases according to circadian rhythm
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