ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some applications of NDS where psychophysics, perception, cognitive and physical work load, and other forms of stress combine to affect human performance. Some of the applications pertain to industrial production. Other applications involve athletics or laboratory experimentation. Four types of stress-behavior mechanisms are developed. The first is the diathesis-stress mechanism, in which the effects of stress are the result of an interaction between environmental influences and the individual’s inherent biological weaknesses. For instance, if there was an inherent weakness in a person’s digestive tract, ulcers could result from prolonged stress exposure. In the studies of industrial color matching and printing processes which are to follow, a diathesis-stress interaction between an industrial process and the biological effects of shift work translated into serious performance changes. In the diasthesis-stress applications, a logical analogy is made between the diasthesis-stress mechanism at the individual and organic levels of a living system and a similar mechanism at the organizational and group level of system level. Health-related examples of diathesis-stress relationships, which are more gemane to the original meaning of the concept, are considered in chapter 8. Most known examples share cusp catastrophe structure. An example of a swallowtail function is also described.
