A Quantitative Vigilance Measuring Model by Fuzzy Sets Theory in Unlimited Monitoring Task

The theory of signal detection has been applied to a wide range of practical situation for a long time, including sonar detection, air traffic control and so on. In general, in this theory, sensitivity parametric index d' and bias parametric index $\beta$ are used to evaluated the performance of vigilance. These indices use observer's response "hit" and "false alarm" to explain and evaluate vigilance, but not considering reaction time. However, the reaction time of detecting should be considered in measuring vigilance in some supervisory tasks such as unlimited monitoring tasks (e.g., supervisors in nuclear plant). There are some researchers have used the segments of reaction time to generate a pair of probabilities of hit and false alarm probabilities and plot the receiver operating characteristic curve. The purpose of this study was to develop a quantitative vigilance-measuring model by fuzzy sets, which combined the concepts of hit, false alarm and reaction time. The model extends two-values logic to multi-values logic by membership functions of fuzzy sets. A simulated experiment of monitoring task in nuclear plant was carried out. Results indicated that the new vigilance-measuring model is more efficient than traditional indices; the characteristics of vigilance would be realized more clearly in unlimited monitoring task.