Citation

Munnik A, Näswall K, Woodward G, Helton WS. Appl. Ergon. 2020; 84: e103032.

Affiliation

University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. Electronic address: whelton@gmu.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.apergo.2019.103032

PMID

31987515

Abstract

The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) is a computer based Go-No-Go response task. Participants respond to frequently occurring neutral stimuli and withhold responses to rare target stimuli. Researchers have suggested the inhibition demands of the SART may mirror those which occur in some firearm accidents. Participants in the present experiment used a simulated nonlethal weapon to subdue threats (images of people holding guns) on large screens. Participants completed a target rich task (high Go low No-Go, like a SART), a target sparse task (low Go/high No-Go), a verbal recall task, and dual versions of the target rich and target sparse tasks with the verbal recall task as the secondary task.

RESULTS provided further evidence that some accidental shootings may result from failures of response inhibition and that additional cognitive load is detrimental to overall performance. Future studies should explore the role of response inhibition in realistic firearm scenarios.

Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Friendly-fire; Mindlessness; Motor control; Response inhibition; Sustained attention; fratricide