A team of cognitive psychologists from Michigan State University has been awarded an $860,000 grant by the Office of Naval Research. The funding will support research aimed at developing assessments to identify individuals capable of performing complex procedural tasks under challenging conditions such as sleep deprivation and frequent interruptions.
Erik Altmann, the lead investigator and a professor in MSU’s psychology department, emphasized the importance of this research for Navy personnel. “If we develop the right tools, we can identify people who are going to be better at performing a wide range of procedures. This is important because Navy personnel are increasingly called upon to do lots of different tasks as military systems become more complex,” Altmann stated. He added that “the goal is to get the right person in the right job at the right time.”
The study will focus on individual differences in placekeeping, which refers to the cognitive ability to remember one’s position within a procedural sequence. Researchers will explore whether incorporating task interruptions during training can aid personnel in developing cognitive strategies for placekeeping during deployment when they may be sleep-deprived.
Altmann noted, “We know that under conditions of sleep deprivation, people make more procedural errors, especially when they’re interrupted in the middle of a task. Procedural errors can be catastrophic, so the Navy is interested in reducing them.”
This research continues previous studies funded by the Office of Naval Research since 2016, which examined multitasking and sleep’s effect on cognitive performance. The team includes cognitive psychologists Kimberly Fenn and Zach Hambrick.
The outcomes could enhance personnel selection and classification not only in the Navy but also in other fields where procedural accuracy is crucial. Furthermore, it could suggest training methods that improve resilience against stressors like sleep deprivation and task interruption.
