Body Consciousness and Situation Awareness in Perceptual Motor Systems

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between body consciousness, perceptual motor performance, and subjective ratings quality. Twenty-one college students participated. The Criterion Task Set unstable tracking task (Shingledecker, 1984) and the Private Body Conscious Scale (Miller, Murphy, and Buss, 1981) were used to explore relationships. Two hypotheses were tested: 1) self-reporting of performance accuracy varies with objective task difficulty and with actual performance quality, and 2) high body conscious individuals will outperform and also give more accurate estimates of their own performance than low body conscious subjects. Results provided support for the self-report accuracy and difficulty level relationship. Marginal support was found for the relationship between body consciousness and self-report accuracy. Additionally, a significant interaction indicated that, at higher difficulty levels, high body conscious subjects performed better than low body conscious subjects. Implications for situation awareness training, usability testing, and performance improvement are discussed.