Consider the Yerkes-Dodson Law (Performance Arousal curve). Why do we see an increase in performance as arousal increases toward optimum on the left side of the curve?

In voluntary task switching, we discussed five factors that determine the attractiveness of a task. In this context, what does priority refer to? 

Consider a nuclear power plant operator and an automated system that manages the plant. The automation integrates information and provides alerts to the operator if there are values out of range. Today, the operator receives an alert that the temperature and the water level in reactor 1 are very high. The automated system suggests releasing water out of reactor 1. This does not make sense to the operator, but the automation has never been wrong before, so the operator does release water out of reactor 1. The supervisor asks if the temperature and water level were normal earlier in the shift, but the operator did not check them since there was no alert from the system. Within hours, reactor 1 experiences a partial meltdown. What source of automation intervention failure is this describing?  

Which of the following does NOT contribute to fatigue potential?

HFACS: A pilot uses a start-up checklist every single time that they fly. On one particular day, this pilot is rushing through the checklist and unknowingly skips over a checklist item, resulting in them trying to taxi with the parking brake on. This is best classified as what? 

There are several factors that determine the attractiveness of a task that will be switched to or stayed on. One of these factors says that a task may call attention to its presence (like your phone ringing) and that could make it more attractive to switch to. Which factor is this related to?

We discussed interruption management and its implications to the task environment and to performance. What factors impact the interruption lag? 

When we consider expertise in decision making, why do experts make more intuitive decisions? 

Let’s say we have a user who drinks a soda every day at 10am during their work break. Their dentist has advised them to stop drinking soda as the sugar is damaging their teeth. They want to break this habit of drinking soda each day. Which of the following would be required for this user to successfully break this old habit? 

True or false: if we do not expend any energy, we do not need to consume any energy (for example, if we were to lay down all day and not move, we would not need to take in any energy). Pick A for true or B for false.