A Systematic Review of The Semantic Vigilance Literature

Abstract

The present study sought to review and summarize the extant literature on semantic vigilance, or lexical vigilance, to benchmark the performance, stress, and workload associated with such tasks. This review also seeks to better define and describe semantic vigilance in relation to the vigilance taxonomy (Parasuraman & Davies, 1977; Parasuraman, Warm, & Dember, 1987). In a database search, 5499 records were identified. After removing duplicates and screening articles based on the inclusion criteria, 8 full-text articles on semantic vigilance were retained for further analysis. The results of this review indicated that semantic vigilance tasks, while short in length, reliably produce a traditional vigilance decrement that is associated with high workload and low stress state scores. While a nascent field of research, this review identified several gaps within the field including limitations in participant selection and inclusion, a lack of application to real world semantic vigilance tasks, and limited variability in the stimuli used for measuring semantic vigilance performance over time.