Facilitating engagement of universal school-based digital mental health solutions through user experience: A qualitative exploration.

Digital mental health intervention (DMHI) programs offered in schools present a readily-accessible and flexible means for educating, empowering, and supporting adolescents in maintaining a balanced mental health, especially during uncertain and stressful times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent studies indicate that the effectiveness of DMHI programs in improving students' mental well-being and in preventing from their mental health complications depends on the users' engagement. This study focuses on identifying the user experience factors that can facilitate user engagement with universal school-based DMHI programs (i.e., the DMHI programs delivered to the students regardless of their mental health risks or conditions). To identify said factors, we sought to gain a deeper understanding of perceptions, opinions, and preferences of actual end-users (i.e., the adolescents) regarding their experiences with both digital and non-digital mental health resources. Specifically, interviews were conducted with two participant groups to uncover the reasons that could lead the adolescents to better engage with school-based DMHI programs, as well as the shortcomings that could prevent that from happening: (a) adolescent users who had either a high or a low level of engagement with universal DMHI programs of a specific school-based digital mental health solution; and (b) adolescents who had voluntarily used non-digital or non-school-based digital mental health resources for purposes other than treatment. Through a thematic analysis of interview data, the most important (or primary) and the additionally desirable (or secondary) factors that could lead to a higher engagement level for school-based DMHI programs were identified. Lastly, using the evidence gathered from our interviews, specific recommendations are proposed that could help in targeting each identified engagement factor and in increasing the likelihood that school-based DMHI programs achieve their desired outcome for high school students.

User Experience Evaluation in Shared Interactive Virtual Reality.

Virtual reality (VR) has served the entertainment industry all the way to world-leading museums in delivering engaging experiences through multisensory virtual environments (VEs). Today, the rise of the Metaverse fuels a growing interest in leveraging this technology, bringing along an emerging need to better understand the way different dimensions of VEs, namely social and interactive, impact overall user experience (UX). This between-subject exploratory field study investigates differences in the perceived and lived experience of 28 participants engaging, either individually or in dyads, in a VR experience comprising different levels of interactivity, i.e., passive or active. A mixed methods approach combining conventional UX measures, i.e., psychometric surveys and user interviews, as well as psychophysiological measures, i.e., wearable bio- and motion sensors, allowed for a comprehensive assessment of users' immersive and affective experiences. Results pertaining to the social dimension of the experience reveal that shared VR elicits significantly more positive affect, whereas presence, immersion, flow, and state anxiety are unaffected by the copresence of a real-world partner. Results pertaining to the interactive dimension of the experience suggest that the interactivity afforded by the VE moderates the effect of copresence on users' adaptive immersion and arousal. These results support that VR can be shared with a real-world partner not only without hindering the immersive experience, but also by enhancing positive affect. Hence, in addition to offering methodological directions for future VR field research, this study provides interesting practical insights into guiding VR developers toward optimal multiuser virtual environments.

Effects of reading contextualized physics problems among men and women: A psychophysiological approach.

To counteract declining interest in science, contextualizing course material has been suggested, despite little evidence supporting this strategy. We assessed how reading physics problems in different contexts-none, technical, or humanistic-impacted performance and implicit cognitive and affective situational interest (SI) among undergraduate men and women (n = 60). We hypothesized that contextualized problems would increase cognitive SI, boosting performance. We also investigated existing hypotheses that this influence would be stronger when contexts matched stereotypical gender interests. Pupillometric and electroencephalographic data served to indicate cognitive SI, while electrodermal activity (EDA) and valence were measures of affective SI. Significantly higher valence was observed in decontextualized than humanistic problems (p = 0.003) specifically among men (p < 0.001). Greater EDA (p = 0.019) and decontextualized problems (p < 0.001) yielded greater performance than contextualized problems for all participants. Results emphasize the importance of affective SI and of avoiding gender biases in curricular development. This study encourages caution if implementing contextualization.

Don't overthink it: The paradoxical nature of expertise for the detection of errors in conceptual business process models.

Business process models are widely used artifacts in design activities to facilitate communication about business domains and processes. Despite being an extensively researched topic, some aspects of conceptual business modeling are yet to be fully explored and understood by academicians and practitioners alike. We study the attentional characteristics specific to experts and novices in a semantic and syntactic error detection task across 75 Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) models. We find several intriguing results. Experts correctly identify more error-free models than novices, but also tend to find more false positive defects. Syntactic errors are diagnosed faster than semantic errors by both groups. Both groups spend more time on error-free models. Our findings regarding the ambiguous differences between experts and novices highlight the paradoxical nature of expertise and the need to further study how best to train business analysts to design and evaluate conceptual models.

What's that on Your Phone? Effects of Mobile Device Task Type on Pedestrian Performance.

BACKGROUND: The number of accidents due to distracted pedestrian is on the rise and many governments and institutions are enacting public policies which restrict texting while walking. However, pedestrians do more than just texting when they use their mobile devices on the go. OBJECTIVE: Exploring pedestrian multitasking, this paper aims to examine the effects of mobile device task type on pedestrian performance outcomes. METHOD: We performed two studies in lab simulations where 78 participants were asked to perform different tasks on a mobile device (playing a game, reading, writing an email, texting one person, group texting) while performing a pedestrian visual discrimination task while either standing or walking on a treadmill. Behavioral performance as well as neurophysiological data are collected. RESULTS: Results show that compared to a no-phone control, multitasking with any of the tasks on a mobile device leads to poor performance on a pedestrian visual discrimination task. Playing a game is the most cognitively demanding task and leads to the greatest performance degradation. CONCLUSION: Our studies show that multitasking with a mobile device has the potential to negatively impact pedestrian safety, regardless of task type. However, the impacts of different mobile device tasks are not all equivalent. More research is needed to tease out the different effects of these various tasks and to design mobile applications which effectively and safely capture pedestrians' attention. APPLICATION: Public policy, infrastructure, and smart technologies can be used to mitigate the negative effects of mobile multitasking. A more thorough understanding of mobile device task-specific factors at play can help tailor these counter-measures to better aid distracted pedestrians.

Stress can lead to an increase in smartphone use in the context of texting while walking.

Texting while walking (TWW) is a dangerous behavior that can lead to injury and even death. While several studies have examined the relationship between smartphone use and stress, to our knowledge no studies have yet investigated the relationship between stress and TWW. The objective of the present study was to investigate this relationship by examining the effects of stress on TWW, the effects of TWW on subsequent stress, and the effect of stress on multitasking performance. A total of 80 participants completed two sequential tasks in a laboratory while they walked on a treadmill and responded to a biological motion stimulus imitating the movement of another pedestrian. In the unrestricted task, participants were given the choice to use their personal phones. In the controlled task, they carried a text conversation with a research assistant while they walked and responded to the stimulus. Stress was measured via questionnaire and saliva collection for measure of cortisol (a stress hormone) before and after each task. Results show that greater psychological stress and cortisol variations were associated with a greater number of phone uses during the unrestricted task. Greater phone use during the unrestricted task was associated with lower subsequent psychological stress in women and total time of phone use was correlated with subsequent cortisol levels. Stress measured before the controlled task had no effect on multitasking performance, but participants with moderate performance were those with the highest cortisol levels. Our results suggest that stress could be a precursor to TWW and that it could affect a pedestrian's ability to stay safe when using their smartphone.

Attentional and Behavioral Disengagement as Coping Responses to Technostress and Financial Stress: An Experiment Based on Psychophysiological, Perceptual, and Behavioral Data.

Discontinuance of information systems (IS) is a common phenomenon. It is thus critical to understand the decision process and psychophysiological mechanisms that underlie the intention and corresponding behaviors to discontinue IS use, particularly within the digital financial technology usage context, where continuance rates remain low despite increased adoption. Discontinuance has been identified as one coping behavior to avoid stressful situations. However, research has not yet explored this phenomenon toward digital financial technologies. This manuscript builds upon a pilot study that investigated the combined influence of technostress and financial stress on users' responses toward digital financial decision-making tasks and aims to disentangle the specific impacts of unexpected technology behaviors and perceived financial loss on attentional and behavioral disengagement as coping responses, which may lead to discontinuance from digital financial technology usage. A two-factor within-subject design was developed, where perceived techno-unreliability as variable system response time delays under time pressure and perceived financial loss as negative financial outcomes were manipulated in a 3 × 2 design. Psychophysiological, perceptual, and behavioral data were collected from N = 15 participants while performing an adapted version of the Iowa Gambling Task. The results indicate that unexpected technology behaviors have a far greater impact than perceived financial loss on (1) physiological arousal and emotional valence, demonstrated by decreased skin conductance levels and curvilinear emotional valence responses, (2) feedback processing and decision-making, corroborated by curvilinear negative heart rate (BPM) and positive heart rate variability (HRV) responses, decreased skin conductance level (SCL), increased perceptions of system unresponsiveness and techno-unreliability, and mental workload, (3) attentional disengagement supported by curvilinear HRV and decreased SCL, and (4) behavioral disengagement as coping response, represented by curvilinear decision time and increasingly poor financial decision quality. Overall, these results suggest a feedforward and feedback loop of cognitive and affective mechanisms toward attentional and behavioral disengagement, which may lead to a decision of disengagement-discontinuance as a coping outcome in stressful human-computer interaction situations.

Designing for Confidence: The Impact of Visualizing Artificial Intelligence Decisions.

Explainable artificial intelligence aims to bring transparency to artificial intelligence (AI) systems by translating, simplifying, and visualizing its decisions. While society remains skeptical about AI systems, studies show that transparent and explainable AI systems can help improve the Human-AI trust relationship. This manuscript presents two studies that assess three AI decision visualization attribution models that manipulate morphological clarity (MC) and two information presentation-order methods to determine each visualization's impact on the Human-AI trust relationship through increased confidence and cognitive fit (CF). The first study, N = 206 (Avg. age = 37.87 ± 10.51, Male = 123), utilized information presentation methods and visualizations delivered through an online experiment to explore trust in AI by asking participants to complete a visual decision-making task. The second study, N = 19 (24.9 ± 8.3 years old, Male = 10), utilized eye-tracking technology and the same stimuli presentation methods to investigate if cognitive load, inferred through pupillometry measures, mediated the confidence-trust relationship. The results indicate that low MC positively impacts Human-AI trust and that the presentation order of information within an interface in terms of adjacency further influences user trust in AI. We conclude that while adjacency and MC significantly affect cognitive load, cognitive load alone does not mediate the confidence-trust relationship. Our findings interpreted through a combination of CF, situation awareness, and ecological interface design have implications for the design of future AI systems, which may facilitate better collaboration between humans and AI-based decision agents.

Is there collaboration specific neurophysiological activation during collaborative task activity? An analysis of brain responses using electroencephalography and hyperscanning.

Collaboration between two individuals is thought to be associated with the synchrony of two different brain activities. Indeed, prefrontal cortical activation and alpha frequency band modulation has been widely reported, but little is known about interbrain synchrony (IBS) changes occurring during social interaction such as collaboration or competition. In this study, we assess the dynamic of IBS variation in order to provide novel insights into the frequency band modulation underlying collaboration. To address this question, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to simultaneously record the brain activity of two individuals playing a computer-based game facing four different conditions: collaboration, competition, single participation, and passive observation. The computer-based game consisted of a fast button response task. Using data recorded in sensor space, we calculated an IBS value for each frequency band using both wavelet coherence transform and phase-locking value and performed single-subject analysis to compare each condition. We found significant IBS in frontal electrodes only present during collaboration associated with alpha frequency band modulation. In addition, we observed significant IBS in the theta frequency band for both collaboration and competition conditions, along with a significant single-subject cortical activity. Competition is distinguishable through single-subject activity in several regions and frequency bands of the brain. Performance is correlated with single-subject frontal activation during collaboration in the alpha and beta frequency band.

Persistence of the "Moving Things Are Alive" Heuristic into Adulthood: Evidence from EEG.

Although a growing number of studies indicate that simple strategies, intuitions, or cognitive shortcuts called heuristics can persistently interfere with scientific reasoning in physics and chemistry, the persistence of heuristics related to learning biology is less known. In this study, we investigate the persistence of the "moving things are alive" heuristic into adulthood with 28 undergraduate students who were asked to select between two images, one of which one represented a living thing, while their electroencephalographic signals were recorded. Results show that N2 and LPP event-related potential components, often associated with tasks requiring inhibitory control, are higher in counterintuitive trials (i.e., in trials including moving things not alive or nonmoving things alive) compared with intuitive ones. To our knowledge, these findings represent the first neurocognitive evidence that the "moving things are alive" heuristic persists into adulthood and that overcoming this heuristic might require inhibitory control. Potential implications for life science education are discussed.

Measuring Engagement of Spectators of Social Digital Games.

The goal of this methodology is to assess explicit and implicit measures of engagement of spectators during social digital games in a group of participants with motion tracking systems. In the context of games that are not confined within a screen, measuring the different dimensions of engagement such as physiological arousal can be challenging. The focus of the study is made on the spectators of the game and the differences in their engagement according to interactivity. Engagement is measured with physiological and self-reported arousal, as well as an engagement questionnaire at the end of the experiment. Physiological arousal is measured with electrodermal activity (EDA) sensors that record the data on a portable device (EDA box). Portability was essential because of the nature of the game, which is akin to a life-size pong and includes many participants that move. To have an overview of the events of the game, three cameras are used to film three angles of the playing field. To synchronize the EDA data with events happening in the game, boxes with digital numbers are used and put in the frames of cameras. Signals are sent from a sync box simultaneously to the EDA boxes and to light boxes. The light boxes show the synchronization numbers to the cameras, and the same numbers are also logged on the EDA data file. That way, it is possible to record EDA of many people that move freely in a large space and synchronize this data with events in the game. In our particular study, we were able to assess the differences in arousal for the different conditions of interactivity. One of the limitations of this method is that the signals cannot be sent farther than 20 meters away. This method is, therefore, appropriate for recording physiological data in games with an unlimited number of players but is restricted to a limited space.

Emotional Reactions and Likelihood of Response to Questions Designed for a Mental Health Chatbot Among Adolescents: Experimental Study.

BACKGROUND: Psychological distress increases across adolescence and has been associated with several important health outcomes with consequences that can extend into adulthood. One type of technological innovation that may serve as a unique intervention for youth experiencing psychological distress is the conversational agent, otherwise known as a chatbot. Further research is needed on the factors that may make mental health chatbots destined for adolescents more appealing and increase the likelihood that adolescents will use them. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess adolescents' emotional reactions and likelihood of responding to questions that could be posed by a mental health chatbot. Understanding adolescent preferences and factors that could increase adolescents' likelihood of responding to chatbot questions could assist in future mental health chatbot design destined for youth. METHODS: We recruited 19 adolescents aged 14 to 17 years to participate in a study with a 2×2×3 within-subjects factorial design. Each participant was sequentially presented with 96 chatbot questions for a duration of 8 seconds per question. Following each presentation, participants were asked to indicate how likely they were to respond to the question, as well as their perceived affective reaction to the question. Demographic data were collected, and an informal debriefing was conducted with each participant. RESULTS: Participants were an average of 15.3 years old (SD 1.00) and mostly female (11/19, 58%). Logistic regressions showed that the presence of GIFs predicted perceived emotional valence (ß=-.40, P<.001), such that questions without GIFs were associated with a negative perceived emotional valence. Question type predicted emotional valence, such that yes/no questions (ß=-.23, P=.03) and open-ended questions (ß=-.26, P=.01) were associated with a negative perceived emotional valence compared to multiple response choice questions. Question type also predicted the likelihood of response, such that yes/no questions were associated with a lower likelihood of response compared to multiple response choice questions (ß=-.24, P=.03) and a higher likelihood of response compared to open-ended questions (ß=.54, P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study add to the rapidly growing field of teen-computer interaction and contribute to our understanding of adolescent user experience in their interactions with a mental health chatbot. The insights gained from this study may be of assistance to developers and designers of mental health chatbots.

The Influence of Video Format on Engagement and Performance in Online Learning.

Millions of students follow online classes which are delivered in video format. Several studies examine the impact of these video formats on engagement and learning using explicit measures and outline the need to also investigate the implicit cognitive and emotional states of online learners. Our study compared two video formats in terms of engagement (over time) and learning in a between-subject experiment. Engagement was operationalized using explicit and implicit neurophysiological measures. Twenty-six (26) subjects participated in the study and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions based on the video shown: infographic video or lecture capture. The infographic video showed animated graphics, images, and text. The lecture capture showed a professor, providing a lecture, filmed in a classroom setting. Results suggest that lecture capture triggers greater emotional engagement over a shorter period, whereas the infographic video maintains higher emotional and cognitive engagement over longer periods of time. Regarding student learning, the infographic video contributes to significantly improved performance in matters of difficult questions. Additionally, our results suggest a significant relationship between engagement and student performance. In general, the higher the engagement, the better the student performance, although, in the case of cognitive engagement, the link is quadratic (inverted U shaped).

Smartwatches are more distracting than mobile phones while driving: Results from an experimental study.

The use of smartwatches raises a number of questions about their potential for distraction in situations where sustained attention is paramount, like driving a motor vehicle. Our research examines distraction caused by smartwatch use in comparison to mobile phone use while driving. It also studies the difference in distractions caused by inbound text messages versus inbound voice messages, and outbound replies through text messages versus outbound voice replies. A within-subject experiment was conducted in a driving simulator where 31 participants received and answered text messages under four conditions: they received notifications (1) on a mobile phone, (2) on a smartwatch, and (3) on a speaker, and then responded orally to these messages. They also (4) received messages in a "texting" condition where they had to reply through text to the notifications. Eye tracking gaze distribution results show that participants were more distracted in the smartwatch condition than in the mobile phone condition, they were less distracted in the speaker condition than in the phone condition, and they were more distracted in the texting condition than in any of the others. The participants' driving performance remained the same in all conditions except in the texting condition, wherein it became worse. Eye tracking and pupillometry results suggest that participants' mental workload might be lower in the texting condition than in the other three conditions, although this result might be caused by a higher number of glances at the device in that condition. This study contributes to a better understanding of the distraction potential of smartwatches as well as identifying vocal assistants as the least distracting way of communicating while driving a vehicle. Industry leaders could become a key factor in informing the public of the smartwatch's potential for distraction.

Acute Impact of the Use of a Standing Desk on Appetite Sensations and Energy Intake.

BACKGROUND: Sedentariness has been shown to increase energy intake and is associated with increased obesity prevalence. Active workstations are used to implement physical activity interventions in workplaces, but it is unclear if they can lead to reductions in body weight. This study aims to observe the acute impact of a standing desk on energy intake and appetite sensations. METHODS: Participants came to the laboratory, where they were randomly assigned to a seated or a standing desk. They completed a work session (∼75 min) during which they performed cognitive tasks and reported their levels of stress. Following this, they had a 15-minute break during which buffet-type snacks were served. Subjects were asked to rate their appetite sensations on visual analog scales. RESULTS: Thirty-six normal-weight men and women aged 24.3 (4.3) years participated in this study. Energy intake from snacks was similar (P = .472) between participants who sat (427.8 [286.9] kcal) and the ones who stood (461.2 [272.8] kcal) during the work session. There was no difference in satiety quotients around the snack and no significant interaction time × condition for appetite sensations. CONCLUSION: The use of a standing desk for 75 minutes did not increase food consumption following a meal.

Measuring the Switch Cost of Smartphone Use While Walking.

This paper presents a study protocol to measure the task-switching cost of using a smartphone while walking. This method involves having participants walk on a treadmill under two experimental conditions: a control condition (i.e., simply walking) and a multitasking condition (i.e., texting while walking). During these conditions, the participants must switch between the tasks related to the experimental condition and a direction determining task. This direction task is done with a point-light walker figure, seemingly walking towards the left or the right of the participant. Performance on the direction task represents the participant's task-switching costs. There were two performance measures: 1) correct identification of the direction and 2) response time. EEG data are recorded in order to measure the alpha oscillations and cognitive engagement occurring during the task switch. This method is limited in its ecological validity: pedestrian environments have many stimuli occurring simultaneously and competing for attention. Nonetheless, this method is appropriate for pinpointing task-switching costs. The EEG data allow the study of the underlying mechanisms in the brain that are related to differing task-switching costs. This design allows the comparison between task switching when doing one task at a time, as compared to task switching when multitasking, prior to the stimulus presentation. This allows understanding and pinpointing both the behavioral and neurophysiological impact of these two different task-switching conditions. Furthermore, by correlating the task-switching costs with the brain activity, we can learn more about what causes these behavioral effects. This protocol is an appropriate base for studying the switching cost of different smartphone uses. Different tasks, questionnaires, and other measures can be added to it in order to understand the different factors involved in the task-switching cost of smartphone use while walking.

Mobile phone use in young adults who self-identify as being "Very stressed out" or "Zen": An exploratory study.

Previous studies have reported a positive association between mobile phone use and psychological stress. However, the reasons why stressed out individuals use their cell phones more are not clear. To gain further insight on this relationship, we performed secondary analyses on a database of 87 healthy young adults aged 18-35 years who self-categorized themselves as being "Very stressed out" (N = 46) or "Zen" (N = 41). All participants were assessed for psychological stress, duration and nature (hedonistic vs. utilitarian) of mobile phone use, involvement with the mobile phone and levels of nomophobia. Results controlled for the exploratory nature of this study showed that although "Very stressed out" and "Zen" individuals used their mobile phone for the same amount of time and were equally involved with it, "Very stressed out" individuals reported a greater use of their mobile phone for hedonistic purposes and were more nomophobic than "Zen" individuals. The results of this exploratory study suggest that highly stressed out individuals might use hedonistic functions of their mobile phone as a tool to deal with stress, thus explaining why they present greater levels of nomophobia.

Using a smartphone while walking: The cost of smartphone-addiction proneness.

Distracted walking is an ever-increasing problem. Studies have already shown that using a smartphone while walking impairs attention and increases the risk of accidents. This study seeks to determine if smartphone-addiction proneness magnifies the risks of using a smartphone while walking. In an experimental design, participants, while walking on a treadmill and engaged in a smartphone task, were required to switch tasks by responding to an external stimulus, i.e., determining the direction of movement of a point-light walker. Participants were chosen to cover a range of smartphone-addiction proneness. Four smartphone-use conditions were simulated: a control condition with no smartphone-use, an individual conversation condition, a gaming condition, and a group conversation condition. Our results show that using a smartphone while walking decreases accuracy and increases the number of missed stimuli. Moreover, participants with higher smartphone-addiction proneness scores were also prone to missing more stimuli, and this effect was found regardless of experimental condition. The effect of the smartphone task on accuracy and the number of missed stimuli was mediated by the emotional arousal caused by the smartphone task. Smartphone-addiction proneness was positively correlated with a declared frequency of smartphone use while walking. Furthermore, of all the smartphone tasks, the gaming condition was found to be the most distracting.

Does Reducing Sedentarity With Standing Desks Hinder Cognitive Performance?

OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to determine if using a standing desk would affect the productivity of workers, based on the type of work they perform. BACKGROUND: Standing desks are a promising new health intervention in the workplace, but users and employers often require more specific recommendations related to productivity, such as the type of work that is more suited for the standing desk. METHOD: Thirty-seven young and healthy adults performed eight cognitive tasks in a 2 × 2 × 2 within-subject design of the following independent variables: posture (sitting/standing), task difficulty (easy/hard), and input device (computer mouse/tactile screen) in a counterbalanced order. RESULTS: Our results revealed that using a standing desk had no negative effect on performance or perception, but it did lead to increased brain activity in the alpha band for the parietal region (ß = 0.186, p = .001). CONCLUSION: We conclude that users of standing desks can freely stand for any level of task difficulty for work that involves working memory. However, more research is needed to generalize these results to other types of cognitive abilities and prolonged use of standing desks. APPLICATION: Our results simplify recommendations for workers as they do not need to worry about the type of work they are performing when using a standing desk.

Toward a Hybrid Passive BCI for the Modulation of Sustained Attention Using EEG and fNIRS.

We report results of a study that utilizes a BCI to drive an interactive interface countermeasure that allows users to self-regulate sustained attention while performing an ecologically valid, long-duration business logistics task. An engagement index derived from EEG signals was used to drive the BCI while fNIRS measured hemodynamic activity for the duration of the task. Participants (n = 30) were split into three groups (1) no countermeasures (NOCM), (2) continuous countermeasures (CCM), and (3) event synchronized, level-dependent countermeasures (ECM). We hypothesized that the ability to self-regulate sustained attention through a neurofeedback mechanism would result in greater task engagement, decreased error rate and improved task performance. Data were analyzed by wavelet coherence analysis, statistical analysis, performance metrics and self-assessed cognitive workload via RAW-TLX. We found that when the BCI was used to deliver continuous interface countermeasures (CCM), task performance was moderately enhanced in terms of total 14,785 (σ = 423) and estimated missed sales 7.46% (σ = 1.76) when compared to the NOCM 14,529 (σ = 510), 9.79% (σ = 2.75), and the ECM 14,180 (σ = 875), 9.62% (σ = 4.91) groups. An "actions per minute" (APM) metric was used to determine interface interaction activity which showed that overall the CCM and ECM groups had a higher APM of 3.460 (SE = 0.140) and 3.317 (SE = 0.139) respectively when compared with the NOCM group 2.65 (SE = 0.097). Statistical analysis showed a significant difference between ECM - NOCM and CCM - NOCM (p < 0.001) groups, but no significant difference between the ECM - CCM groups. Analysis of the RAW-TLX scores showed that the CCM group had lowest total score 7.27 (σ = 3.1) when compared with the ECM 9.7 (σ = 3.3) and NOCM 9.2 (σ = 3.4) groups. No statistical difference was found between the RAW-TLX or the subscales, except for self-perceived performance (p < 0.028) comparing the CCM and ECM groups. The results suggest that providing a means to self-regulate sustained attention has the potential to keep operators engaged over long periods, and moderately increase on-task performance while decreasing on-task error.