Mitigation of Performance Decrement in Transient Extreme Heat
This paper examines the effect of operator skill level upon performance in transient extreme heat. Previous work has indicated that task familiarity is beneficial in prolonging efficient performance in elevated environmental temperature. It is proposed that such familiarity is subsumed by automated responses, with respect to consistent components of individual task demands. These components, developed through consistent mapping of stimulus and response relationships, remain essentially unimpaired by the thermal stressor. In contrast, heat may induce potentially dangerous decrement in both inconsistent elements of practiced tasks and performance in novel or emergency situations. The automatic and control processing framework may be applied to performance variation under alternate environmental stressors and is of potential importance to those who have occasion to require personnel to operate in non-optimal environmental conditions.