Evaluative Social Presence can Improve Vigilance Performance, but Vigilance Is Still Hard Work and Is Stressful

Abstract

Vigilance is the ability to sustain attention over a period of time. Previous research has indicated that vigilance tasks are hard work and are stressful for human operators. Performance tends to decline with time on task, and workload and stress typically increase during the course of the vigil. Methods that could be used to overcome the adverse effects of vigilance (i.e., stress, workload, poor performance) includes social facilitation factors, such as performing the task while under observation. Thus, the present experiments examined the effects of multiple forms of social facilitation on vigilance, as well as the stress and workload associated with performing the task. Over 2 experiments, 284 participants completed a 24-min cognitive vigilance task. The results indicated that evaluative-based forms of social presence (i.e., direct monitoring, electronic performance monitoring) were associated with improved detection performance. The mere social presence of a monitor did not significantly influence vigilance performance. The results also demonstrated that social facilitation (in any form) did not impose additional stress or workload on the observers. These novel results have both important practical and theoretical implications for both vigilance performance and social facilitation.