Knowledge of Results (KR) and Vigilance: Are Feedback Effects Due to Information or Motivation?

Vigilance is the mental capacity required to monitor for rare but critical signals in a sequence of non-signal events. Vigilance predominates in many safety-critical fields as well as everyday activities. Unfortunately, humans consistently fail at sustaining attention. Existing vigilance research has found that the provision of feedback in the form of knowledge of results (KR) positively impacts performance. However, the underlying mechanisms driving this performance enhancement remain unclear. The present study evaluated the impact of both informational and motivational dimensions of KR on vigilance task performance. A between-subject design manipulated KR on a simultaneous, cognitive vigilance task. One control, one informational feedback, one motivational feedback, and two neutral feedback conditions were employed in the design. Only those in the informational condition showed improved RTs compared to controls. These observed RT enhancements provide further support for the existing research regarding the effectiveness of KR as well as the Goal Setting Hypothesis. Our findings suggest that the effectiveness of KR is due to the information quality. The motivational component of KR is possibly a product of goal setting and not the primary mechanism driving KR’s effectiveness. This study has implications for training and the design of human-computer systems.