Mackworth Clock
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Mackworth Clock
{{Short description, Experimental device The Mackworth Clock is an experimental device used in the field of experimental psychology to study the effects of long term vigilance on the detection of signals. It was originally created by Norman Mackworth Norman H. "Mack" Mackworth (1917–2005) was a British psychologist and cognitive scientist known for his pioneering work in the study of boredom, attention, and vigilance; the Mackworth Clock test has been used since the 1940s in the study of v ... as an experimental simulation of long term monitoring by radar operators in the British Air Force during World War II. The device has a large black pointer in a large circular background like a clock. The pointer moves in short jumps like the second hand of an analog clock, approximately every second. At infrequent and irregular intervals, the hand makes a double jump, e.g. 12 times every 30 seconds. The task is to detect when the double jumps occur by pressing a button. Typically, Mackwor ...
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Experimental Psychology
Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, including (among others) sensation & perception, memory, cognition, learning, motivation, emotion; developmental processes, social psychology, and the neural substrates of all of these. History Early experimental psychology Wilhelm Wundt Experimental psychology emerged as a modern academic discipline in the 19th century when Wilhelm Wundt introduced a mathematical and experimental approach to the field. Wundt founded the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. Other experimental psychologists, including Hermann Ebbinghaus and Edward Titchener, included introspection in their experimental methods. Charles Bell Charles Bell was a British physiologist whose main contribution to the medical and scientific c ...
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Vigilance (psychology)
In modern psychology, vigilance, also termed sustained concentration, is defined as the ability to maintain concentrated attention over prolonged periods of time. During this time, the person attempts to detect the appearance of a particular target stimulus. The individual watches for a signal stimulus that may occur at an unknown time. The study of vigilance has expanded since the 1940s mainly due to the increased interaction of people with machines for applications involving monitoring and detection of rare events and weak signals. Such applications include air traffic control, inspection and quality control, automated navigation, military and border surveillance, and lifeguarding. Origins of research The systematic study of vigilance was initiated by Norman Mackworth during World War II. Mackworth authored "The breakdown of vigilance during prolonged visual search" in 1948 and this paper is the seminal publication on vigilance. Mackworth's 1948 study investigated the tendency o ...
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Norman Mackworth
Norman H. "Mack" Mackworth (1917–2005) was a British psychologist and cognitive scientist known for his pioneering work in the study of boredom, attention, and vigilance; the Mackworth Clock test has been used since the 1940s in the study of vigilance. During the Second World War, Mackworth was recruited by the RAF to study the efficiency of radar operators - after only 30 minutes the operators lost about 10 to 15 percent of their efficiency. His findings resulted in the length of operator duty shifts being severely reduced. In 1951, Mackworth became head of the Unit for Research in Applied Psychology at Cambridge University, where he remained until emigrating to Canada in 1958.History of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
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Psychology Experiments
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.Fernald LD (2008)''Psychology: Six perspectives'' (pp.12–15). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Hockenbury & Hockenbury. Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2010. Ψ (''psi''), the first letter of the Greek word ''psyche'' from which the term psychology is derived (see below), is commonly associated with the science. A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psychol ...
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Scientific Equipment
A scientific instrument is a device or tool used for scientific purposes, including the study of both natural phenomena and theoretical research. History Historically, the definition of a scientific instrument has varied, based on usage, laws, and historical time period. Before the mid-nineteentcenturysuch tools were referred to as "natural philosophical" or "philosophical" apparatus and instruments, and older tools from antiquity to the Middle Ages (such as the astrolabe and pendulum clock) defy a more modern definition of "a tool developed to investigate nature qualitatively or quantitatively." Scientific instruments were made by instrument makers living near a center of learning or research, such as a university or research laboratory. Instrument makers designed, constructed, and refined instruments for purposes, but if demand was sufficient, an instrument would go into production as a commercial product. In a description of the use of the eudiometer by Jan Ingenhousz to show ...
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