The Effect of SPAM Administration During a Dynamic Simulation

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine whether administration of the situation present assessment method (SPAM) affects workload and/or task performance. BACKGROUND SPAM probes are thought to isolate workload from the assessment of situation awareness (SA) by including a warning signal before asking an SA-related question. However, there is a good reason to think that SPAM may still have an effect on dynamic workload and task performance. Specifically, nearly all dual tasks affect workload and performance; thus, it would be surprising if SPAM did not. METHOD Following the methods of Durso, Bleckley, and Dattel, I evaluated workload and performance on the Air Traffic Scenarios Test in SPAM, non-SPAM probe, and no-probe conditions. RESULTS Global workload was unaffected by probe administration. However, at least with novice performers, SPAM probes affected task performance. CONCLUSION The use of a warning signal does not eliminate performance decrements associated with secondary tasks. Moreover, there may be performance decrements unique to SPAM. APPLICATION Cautious users of online assessment measures, such as SPAM, may want to remove performance immediately subsequent to probes from analysis, use an interprobe interval longer than 2.83 min, and construct their assessment measures to reduce display search times unrelated to primary task performance.