ABSTRACT

This chapter describes several lines of research conducted for the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) project that investigate factors affecting response-selection processes in operational environments, with particular emphasis on basic perceptual-motor skill components. Consequently, factors that affect response-selection processes have been of theoretical and practical concern. Information-processing models typically consist of three major subsystems— stimulus encoding, response selection, and response execution — of which the most critical component in determining the speed and accuracy of performance is that of response selection. It is widely acknowledged that response selection is the central cognitive process that influences the speed and accuracy of task performance and benefits most from training. Some operational factors have stronger influences on response selection than others so that extended practice cannot overcome the effect, and some cause slow learning processes. If it is not possible to exclude incompatibility, operational environments should be carefully designed to separate compatible and incompatible operations to avoid their conflicts.