ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the energetics of human performance, often referred to as intensity of attention or sustained attention. Issues on sustained attention were among the applied interests of the new performance theory, particularly in regard to the problem of maintaining alertness in monotonous, watchkeeping tasks. It is remarkable that, their common themes notwithstanding, research on energetics and on selective attention and reaction processes has been carried out in almost complete isolation. One may safely say that the mainstream of performance research has been engaged with cognitive aspects of performance without any consideration of energetics. The dominant interest in computation rather than in energy may be due to the computer metaphor that is insensitive to emotions, motivation, and fatigue. The available research on alertness, fatigue, and the effects of stresses and psychotropic drugs has had little impact on cognitive performance models. In the same way, computational performance models have hardly inspired the performance tasks that were popular in the study of energetics. This has hampered progress because energetics and computation are fully intertwined.
