Friend/foe identification and shooting performance: Effects of prior task loading and time pressure

The current dismounted soldier and the soldier of the future will be “loaded” with more information processing tasks while they perform shooting tasks. It is conceivable that some increased level of cognitive tasking may be performed simultaneously with required shooting tasks. The current was conducted in a high fidelity mixed reality simulation environment SAST-II. The study was designed to examine the ability of the soldier to perform friend-foe target discrimination and shooting accuracy, with varying target exposure times, friendly target signatures, and varying cognitive load demands. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences for the memory recall task during shooting and non-shooting conditions. Furthermore, results showed that workload increased as a function of task demand, with associated decreases in shooting performance.