Skip to main content

PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Cognit.
Sec. Attention
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcogn.2024.1505046
This article is part of the Research Topic Advances in Vigilance Research: Exploring Novel Theoretical Models and Analytical Approaches on the analysis of the Vigilance Decrement. View all articles

Beyond Detection Rate: Understanding the Vigilance Decrement Using Signal Detection Theory

Provisionally accepted
Henri Etel Skinner Henri Etel Skinner 1,2*Barry Giesbrecht Barry Giesbrecht 1,2
  • 1 Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, United States
  • 2 Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The vigilance decrement has been classically characterized as the decline in performance across time as individuals continuously attend to a task. Errors during these periods of degraded performance are often collectively characterized as failures of attention. Theoretically, using a single construct, such as attention, to describe impaired performance obscures what is likely a range of behaviors. Methodologically, the classic characterization of the vigilance decrement relies upon declines in detection rate, a binary measure that is unable to characterize performance beyond a single dimension. This is a critical issue for the study of vigilance because detection rate can be impacted both by changes in sensitivity and response criterion. Commonly used tasks do not allow for the reliable computation of these metrics because they elicit a low number of false alarms or because they introduce confounding response demands. To address these shortcomings, we propose the use of a paradigm amenable to the application of the signal detection framework, which permits the reliable and isolated investigation of the vigilance decrement across multiple measures.

    Keywords: Vigilance1, signal detection theory2, sustained attention3, Performance4, inattention5

    Received: 02 Oct 2024; Accepted: 31 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Skinner and Giesbrecht. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Henri Etel Skinner, Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.