The Effects of Degraded Visual and Tactile Information on Diver Work Performance

Abstract

An attempt was made to provide direct, quantitative assessment of environmental and equipment variables on diver work performance. Five male volunteer divers were each given 12 training trials on a standardized, U. S. Navy work task before exposure to eight, randomly presented, experimental visual and tactile conditions. A two-factor repeated measures design was utilized with four levels of luminance degradation and two levels of tactile restriction. Divers were required to perform standardized work underwater while measures of heart rate, errors, and time to complete the task were taken. Results indicated that significant changes occur in measures of time to complete the task and errors, as a direct function of tactile and luminance degradation.