Vigilance: The Problem of Sustained Attention deals with vigilance and how the ability to sustain attention is influenced by certain definite conditions of the external and internal environment. Topics covered range from factors affecting vigilance performance to the physiological correlates of vigilance, theories of vigilance performance, and the relationship between arousal and vigilance performance. This volume is comprised of six chapters and begins with an overview of research on vigilance behavior, followed by a discussion on some of the factors affecting vigilance performance, including signal frequency and personality. Subsequent chapters explore physiological correlates of vigilance such as galvanic skin resistance and cortical evoked potentials; reinforcement theory, expectancy theory, and other theories of vigilance performance; and arousal theory and the phenomenon of time error. The final chapter considers some of the conditions that improve vigilance performance, along with the correlation between vigilance and arousal. This book will be of interest to psychologists.

This volume contains the proceedings of a symposium held in St. Vincent, Italy, on August 3-6,1976, entitled "Vigilance II: Relationships Among Theory, Physiological Correlates, and Opera tional Performance." The symposium was sponsored jointly by the Human Factors Panel of the Scientific Affairs Division of NATO and by the Physiology Programs Office of the U.S. Office of Naval Research (Contract N00014-76-C-0722). These sponsorships, and the helpful assistance of Dr. Donald P. Woodward and Dr. John A. Nagay, are gratefully acknowledged. Following the editor's introduction, the papers appear in the order they were given at St. Vincent. In general they are grouped according to the main topical themes of the symposium: keynote ad dress, vehicle operation, monitoring and inspection, physiological correlates, stress effects, individual differences, and theoretical considerations. I must point out, however, that individual papers often overlapped several of these topical areas and thus no defini tive partitioning of the proceedings has been attempted. I wish to acknowledge the many contributions of my colleague, Dr. James O'Hanlon, to both the planning of the symposium and the preparation of the manuscript, and the invaluable role of my wife, Shirley Jean, in making the symposium such a pleasant one for all. In addition, I wish to recognize the countless contributions of Lynda Lee Chilton and Katherine Peimann whose performance in compos ing, typing, and proofing the manuscript is certainly a tribute to human vigilance, and endurance as well.

The investigation of a potential autonomic physiological concomitant of overt behavior (i.e., galvanic skin response as a correlate of signal detection) in a Mackworth-type vigilance task is described. Previous activity in this general area is discussed, and several new approaches are indicated.

It has been 15 years since the original publication of Neuropsychology of Attention. At the time of its publication, attention was a construct that had long been of theoretical interest in the field of psychology and was receiving increased research by cognitive scientists. Yet, attention was typically viewed as a nuisance variable; a factor that needed to be accounted for when assessing brain function, but of limited importance in its own right. There is a need for a new edition of this book within Neuropsychology to present an updated and integrated review of what is know about attention, the disorders that affect it, and approaches to its clinical assessment and treatment. Such a book will provide perspectives for experimental neuropsychological study of attention and also provide clinicians with insights on how to approach this neuropsychological domain.