THEORETICAL EXPLANATION OF VIGILANCE DECREMENT

Abstract

Vigilance refers to the ability to remain alert on a specific task for longer period of time. During vigilance task performance usually declined with increase in time which is termed as vigilance decrement. Present paper discusses about numerous theories that have been proposed to explain vigilance performance. However, yet a theory has to emerge that could make specific performace related predictions. Recently, two broad families of theories of failures of sustained attention are widely debated in the literature. The first family of theories contends that the decrement in vigilance performance occurs due to mindlessness, boredom, or cognitive under-load produced by monotonous nature of vigilance tasks. On the contrary, the second family of theories posits that the vigilance decrement occurs due to resource demand, mental fatigue, or cognitive over-load placed by highly demanding nature of vigilance tasks.