Combining Spatial and Temporal Task Demands: Effects on Performance, Workload, and Stress

An experiment is described examining the effect of combining spatial and temporal task demands on performance, workload, and stress associated with perceptual discriminations at two levels of difficulty. The effect of intermittent bursts of white noise was also examined. According to the maximal adaptability model, the joint effects of task type, noise exposure, and discrimination difficulty should produce a performance decrement as well as increased perceived workload and stress. Although results conformed to expectation for task manipulation, intermittent white noise and discrimination difficulty did not have the interactive effect predicted according to the maximal adaptability model. Implications for future research are discussed.