Date of Award

Fall 1996

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Program/Concentration

Psychology

Committee Director

Frederick G. Freeman

Committee Member

Peter J. Mikulka

Committee Member

Michelle L. Kelley

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.P65 C6537

Abstract

The present experiment assessed the importance of the temporal, parietal, and frontal lobes in a sustained attention task using a closed-loop arousal monitoring system for a tracking task. Thirty-six undergraduates from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia served as subjects. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the lobe conditions and recordings were taken from sites over either their temporal, parietal or frontal lobes while they performed a compensatory tracking task. The monitoring system recorded the subject's beta, theta, and alpha wave production, an engagement index (derived from an algebraic function of the individual bandwidths) and the root mean square error on the tracking task. Each subject alternated between an automatic (computer-controlled) and manual (subject-controlled) tracking condition based upon their engagement index and the feedback modes, positive (designed to keep arousal levels moving in one direction) and negative (designed to keep arousal at a median level). It was hypothesized that the negative feedback mode would contain a significantly greater number of switches between control modes. This hypothesis was only supported by the frontal lobe group, E (1, 33) = 2.5, R < .10. Additionally, weak effects were found for tracking error E (1, 32) = 2.93, R < .10, with significantly greater tracking error under negative feedback. Trends in the individual bandwidths and engagement indexes are also discussed.

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In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/23nh-0q16

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