Impairment in attentional processing in a field survival environment

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGYAppl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 643–652 (2008)Published online 8 August 2007 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.1385
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Impairment in Attentional Processing in a FieldSurvival Environment

JOHN LEACH1* and LOUISE ANSELL2

1Department of Psychology, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK2The College of St Mark & St John, School of Outdoor Education, Plymouth, UK

SUMMARY

The suggestion that maladaptive behaviour often observed in survival incidents may be due to arestriction in attentional processing was tested using sub-components of the Test of EverydayAttention in participants undergoing a field survival exercise. Compared to a baseline condition andcontrol group those undergoing environmental duress showed significant impairment in selective andsustained attention which taken together suggests dysfunction in controlled attention. No impairmentwas found in either attentional switching or auditory-verbal working memory. It is argued that thistype of cognitive impairment makes flexible interaction with the survival environment difficultand the victim’s behaviour becomes dominated by environmental cues at the expense of wilful,goal-directed survival behaviour. This would begin to answer at least one anomaly that exists insurvivorship: why so many people perish when there is no need. Copyright # 2007 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.

Official disaster inquiries frequently observe that victims show impaired cognitive

functioning or maladaptive behaviour in responding to threat. This is apparent in victim

behaviour that is either disorganised, inappropriate to the circumstances, slow in response

or a combination of the above as supported by witness testimonies of inter alia shipwreck

and aircraft incidents (e.g. AIR, 1988; JAIC, 1997; Leach, 2004; MacCance, Ungley,

Crosfil, & Widowson, 1956) as well as in simulated emergencies (Muir, Marrison, &

Evans, 1989). Shalev (2000) has used the term ‘cognitive disarray’ to describe the

disruption in both cognition and action observed in distressed individuals during disasters.

Anecdotal accounts also suggest that perceiving psychological or physical harm can cause

cognitive impairment (Lazarus, 1966) which could, in turn, limit an individual’s ability to

undertake actions that may mediate the impact of the threat (Mileti & Peek, 2000) even to

the extent of cognitive paralysis in the face of danger (Leach, 2005). Implicit in all

behaviour, including behaviour under threat, is working memory (Miyake & Shah, 1999).

If working memory is impaired then any risk to life and limb is likely to be increased. Yet

the testimony of survivors and witnesses of disaster suggest that, at the point when more

focussed and fluid cognition is required, the opposite often occurs.

Correspondence to: John Leach, Department of Psychology, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK.-mail: [email protected]

opyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

644 J. Leach and L. Ansell

A victim of a disaster has a goal: to survive. In other words, survival constitutes

goal-directed behaviour and as such is considered to be a function of that component of

cognitive function variously termed the central executive (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974),

supervisory attentional system (Norman & Shallice, 1986), working memory capacity-

executive attention (Engle, 2002; Engle & Kane, 2004) or more recently, the supervisory

system (Schwartz, 2006). In fact, it has been argued that the supervisory attentional system

is responsible for processing information under threat (Burgess, 1997).

To survive a threatening environment an individual must be able to interact flexibly with

that environment in a goal-directed manner and the capability a victim has for such flexible

interaction is dependent upon attentional resources, more specifically controlled, or

executive attention (Engle, 2002; Feldman Barrett, Tugade, & Engle, 2004). This ability to

control attention is required when a need exists to modulate contention scheduling in cases

of conflict, when interfering information is present, or to overcome interference from

behaviours that are contradictory to goal achievement. For example when an aircraft

ditches into water a victim’s intuitive response is to inflate his lifejacket especially if he

finds himself underwater. Yet this response must be inhibited until that person has exited

the aircraft otherwise the victim can find himself trapped inside the aircraft and pinned to

the underside of the fuselage ceiling by the buoyancy of the inflated lifejacket. This is

precisely what happened to some of the 123 fatalities of the Ethiopian Airways Flight 961

that crashed into the sea just off the Comoros islands in 1996. This inability to inhibit

inappropriate responses under threat is indicative of impairment in controlled attention.

All processing is initiated by the environment and most acts of attention involve both

stimulus-driven and goal-directed influences (Feldman Barrett et al., 2004), consequently,

any impairment in attention would result in stimulus-driven responses taking precedence

over goal-directed actions. It has been suggested that such behaviour, observed in patients

with closed head injuries or with either left or right-hemisphere strokes, results from a

diminished capacity for attentional resources (Schwartz, 2006; Schwartz, Segal,

Veramonti, Ferraro, & Buxbaum, 2002; Schwartz et al., 1997). More specifically, it has

been argued that sustained attention is a critical resource for natural action behaviour and

that a reduced capacity for sustained attention can lead to increased action errors in both

normal individuals and people with traumatic brain injury (Robertson, Manly, Andrade,

Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997).

It is possible, therefore, that the maladaptive behaviour witnessed in survival incidents

could be due to a restriction in attentional control that impedes a victim’s ability to interact

flexibly with his environment in a goal-directed manner. This study was conducted to

determine whether impairment in attentional processing occurs under the environmental

duress of a survival exercise.

METHOD

Participants

Participants in the experimental group comprised 14 Royal Air Force (RAF) aircrew

(13 males, 1 female) with a mean age of 24.6 years (SD¼ 2.77) who were participating in a

military survival exercise. The control group comprised 12 males and two females RAF

aircrew who were not undergoing survival training, with a mean age of 25.31 years

(SD¼ 1.93). Although it is an operational requirement for aircrew to complete the military

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 22: 643–652 (2008)

DOI: 10.1002/acp

Controlled attention in survival 645

survival course, individual participation in this experimental study was entirely voluntary

and conducted in accordance with the British Psychological Society ethical guidelines for

experiments with human participants (BPS, 1993).

Materials and apparatus

Survival course

The armed forces run intensive survival courses that realistically simulate the novel and

frequently harsh conditions of a survival situation. These courses provide a setting with

controlled risks to study cognitive function in a field environment and, as Barnard, Scott,

and May (2001) have pointed out, such situations are likely to expose any impairment in

cognitive function for examination.

The course comprised an initial 4 days of classroom theory followed by a practical field

phase that is designed to provide a simulation of an ‘aircraft down’ survival incident. The

exercise was run during winter in the north of England in mixed woodland and exposed

moorland. Environmental conditions were demanding with participants subjected at times

to subzero temperatures. Weather conditions were frequently wet extending to hail, sleet,

snow and high winds. The ground was often boggy with localised flooding at times. Course

students were dressed in flying suits and carried only the standard issue kit found in their

aircraft personal survival pack. Whilst every attempt was made to ensure that the survival

situation was as realistic as possible, there is understandably a reduction in the perception

of risk associated with a simulated environment compared to a real incident (Idzikowski &

Baddeley, 1983). However, many of the components of a real incident are experienced by

those who undertake these courses and several participants have previously reported

difficulties in adapting to an environment that is both unfamiliar and stressful. Furthermore,

at no stage were the students informed of either their location or the nature of future events

including when the exercise was to end.

Tests of attention

The following subtests were selected from the Test of Everyday Attention (TEA) (see

Robertson, Ward, Ridgeway, & Nimmo-Smith, 1994 for more detailed descriptions of the

tests):

Map search. The Map Search subtest assesses selective attention. In this test participants

have to search out symbols on a coloured map of the Philadelphia area. These symbols

include a knife and fork indicating eating facilities, a screwdriver and wrench indicating a

repair garage and a petrol pump indicating refuelling stations. The participant has to

locate and circle with a coloured pen as many target symbols as possible in 2 minutes. After

1 minute the participant is given a different coloured pen to enable the tester to count the

number of symbols located in 1 minute compared with the total for 2 minutes. The score is

the number of symbols located out of 80.

Visual elevator. The visual elevator subtest provides a measure of attentional switching.

Participants are required to count up and down as they follow a series of pictures of a lift at

subsequent floors of a building. At intervals a picture of an arrow appears pointing either up

or down. If it is pointing up the participant says ‘up’ and continues counting upwards. If the

arrow points down the participant says ‘down’ and starts counting backwards. Accuracy is

scored by the number of final floors the participant correctly assesses out of 10 trials.

Participants were given two practice cards followed by 10 tests cards.


DOI: 10.1002/acp


Elevator counting with reversal. This is the auditory equivalent of the visual elevator

subtest and loads on auditory-verbal working memory. The test is administered by

audiotape using a portable tape player with headphones. The participants were presented

with a series of tones denoting the lift movement and direction changes. In this test ‘up’ is

signalled by a high-pitched tone and ‘down’ by a low-pitched tone. Participants were

provided with three practice trials followed by 10 test sequences. The score is the number

of correct answers out of the 10 trials.

Lottery test. The lottery subtest assesses sustained attention. In this test participants are

presented with a 10-minute audiotape of numbers in the form ‘BC143’, ‘EF784’ and so on.

The participant has to listen for numbers ending in a given double digit number (‘55’, ‘88’

or ‘33’) and to write down the first two letters of that number sequence. So, if the target is

‘55’ and ‘TQ155’ is heard, the participant writes down ‘TQ’. There are 10 target numbers

in each tape sequence. The score is the number of correctly identified target letters. There

are three versions of each subtest (A, B and C) and these are required to be given in this

order as known practice effects occur on repeating some of these tests and, consequently,

different norms are given for the different versions (for further details see Robertson et al.,

1994).

Additional equipment included a portable audiotape recorder with headphones for

administering the lottery and elevator counting with reversal subtests; blue and red marker

pens for the map search test and a stopwatch. Where required the test items were

weatherproofed for use under harsh environmental conditions (e.g. the map search test was

laminated).

Procedure

Data were obtained from the experimental group during their 2-week survival training

course. All participants were tested on three occasions: session (1) during their classroom

phase, which was 48 hours prior to deploying into the field; session (2) between 12 and

24 hours of first deploying into the field; and session (3) between 72 and 96 hours after field

deployment. Whilst in the field all course students were required to complete various

survival tasks, for example shelter construction, preparing signal fires, etc. To minimise

disruption participants were tested when they became available during slack periods,

however, as far as possible the time between testing sessions for each participant was

comparable. All tests, including practice trials, were administered in accordance with the

testing instructions given in Robertson et al. (1994). The control group was tested in a

classroom over comparable time periods.

RESULTS

All tests were analysed using a two-way mixed ANOVAwith one between factor (group) at

two levels (field, control) and one within factor (day of testing) at three levels (session 1,

session 2, session 3). All tests are two-tailed. Descriptive statistics are given in Table 1.

Map search

Analyses were conducted on two measures: the number of target symbols correctly

identified after 1minute and the number identified after 2minutes. ANOVA for 1minute


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Table 1. Descriptive statistics for subtests of TEA

Test Group Session 1 Session 2 Session 3

Map search (1min) Experimental 60.21 (11.56) 57.64 (12.70) 63.57 (9.89)Control 61.50 (4.93) 66.36 (5.23) 65.71 (6.04)

Map search (2min) Experimental 77.86 (3.82) 77.29 (4.32) 79.50 (0.52)Control 77.93 (2.24) 79.36 (0.63) 79.50 (0.76)

Visual elevator Experimental 9.36 (0.93) 9.64 (0.50) 9.71 (0.47)Control 9.29 (0.50) 9.64 (0.50) 9.79 (0.43)

Elevator counting with reversal Experimental 9.14 (1.35) 9.21 (1.12) 9.21 (1.19)Control 9.21 (0.70) 9.86 (0.36) 9.86 (0.36)

Lottery Experimental 9.71 (0.47) 8.79 (1.19) 8.79 (0.98)Control 9.64 (0.50) 9.79 (0.43) 9.79 (0.43)

SDs in parentheses.


revealed a significant effect of session (F(2, 52)¼ 8.794, p¼ 0.001) but not of group (F(1,

26)¼ 2.326, ns). There was also a significant interaction F(2, 52)¼ 4.941, p< 0.05.

Pair-wise comparisons (incorporating the Bonferroni correction factor) revealed no

difference in map search performance between sessions for the experimental group (all ns)

but a significant improvement in performance in the control group between sessions 1 and

2 (M¼ 61.50 and 66.36, respectively, p< 0.01) and sessions 1 and 3 (M¼ 61.50 and 67.71,

respectively, p< 0.01). No difference in performance was found between sessions 2 and

3 (ns). A significant difference was found between the experimental and control groups on

session 2 (t(26)¼�2.375, p< 0.05) with the control group performing significantly better

than the experimental group. No significant differences were found between the two groups

on either session 1 (t(26)¼�0.383, ns) or session 3 (t(26)¼�1.337, ns).

ANOVA for 2minute scores revealed a significant effect of session (F(2, 52)¼ 5.525,

p< 0.01) but not of group (F(1, 26)¼ 0.841, ns). There was no significant interaction, F(2,

52)¼ 2.757, ns. Pair-wise comparisons (incorporating the Bonferroni correction factor)

revealed no difference in map search performance within sessions for the experimental

group (all ns) but a significant improvement in performance in the control group between

sessions 1 and 2 (M¼ 77.93 and 79.36, respectively, p< 0.05) and between sessions 1 and

3 (M¼ 77.93 and 79.50, respectively, p< 0.05). No difference in performance was found

between sessions 2 and 3.

Visual elevator

ANOVA for the visual elevator scores revealed a significant effect of session (F(2,

52)¼ 3.639, p< 0.05), but not of group (F(1, 26)¼ 0.036, ns). There was no significant

interaction (F(2, 52)¼ 0.035, ns). Pair-wise comparisons (incorporating the Bonferroni

correction factor) revealed no difference in visual elevator performance between sessions

for the experimental group (all ns) nor for the control group (all ns).

Elevator counting with reversal

ANOVA for the elevator counting with reversal scores revealed no significant effect of

session (F(2, 52)¼ 2.057, ns), nor of group (F(1, 26)¼ 2.931, ns). There was also no

significant interaction F(2, 52)¼ 1.316, ns). Pair-wise comparisons (incorporating the


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Bonferroni correction factor) revealed no difference in visual elevator performance

between sessions for the experimental group (all ns) but did reveal a significant difference

for the control group between sessions 1 and 2, and 1 and 3 (M¼ 9.21, p< 0.01 and 9.86,

p< 0.05, respectively).

Lottery test

ANOVA for the lottery scores revealed a significant effect of session (F(2, 52)¼ 6.027,

p< 0.01) and of group (F(1, 26)¼ 16.425, p< 0.001) with the experimental group

performing significantly worse during the field phase than the control group. There was

also a significant interaction (F(2, 52)¼ 5.017, p¼ 0.01). Pair-wise comparisons

(incorporating the Bonferroni correction factor) revealed a significant impairment in

lottery test performance between sessions 1 and 3 for the experimental group (M¼ 9.71

and 8.79 respectively, p< 0.05). There was no significant difference between sessions 2

and 3 (ns). The difference between sessions 1 and 2 just failed significance with the

Bonferroni correction factor (M¼ 9.71 and 8.79, respectively, p¼ 0.051). No significant

differences were found in pair-wise comparisons between any session in the control group

(all ns).

DISCUSSION

By its very nature, a survival situation will comprise physical, physiological and

psychological pressures. Whilst in the laboratory attempts are made to separate these

factors they cannot be truly divorced in a field experiment. Consequently, we have chosen

the term ‘environmental duress’ to refer to the combined interaction of physical,

physiological and psychological pressures. This is done in the knowledge that each

pressure may act independently or in combination to produce cognitive dysfunction.

Survival requires the ability to cope under conditions of environmental duress which, in

turn, requires a capacity to interact flexibly with that environment in a goal-directed

manner and such interaction is dependent upon the ability to control attention (Feldman

Barrett et al., 2004). Consequently, we questioned whether the difficulty in coping with

environmental duress, observed in both victims of disaster and individuals on survival

exercises, could be due to impairment in attentional capability. To this end four aspects of

attention were examined on a military survival exercise using subtests of the TEA

(Robertson et al., 1994), namely: selective attention, attentional switching, auditory-verbal

working memory and sustained attention. The results of these tests will be considered in

turn.

Selective attention involved seeking out and marking symbols on a map within 1 and

2minute periods. The results of the 1-minute test showed that, whilst the control group

showed an improvement in selective attention ability between the first two sessions that

then stabilised, those on the survival course showed a significant impairment in selective

attention following their initial deployment into the field with a recovery to, but no

improvement on, their baseline levels by the third session. This suggests that some form of

delayed recovery is occurring. A similar result emerged for the 2-minute test of selective

attention with significant improvement in performance amongst the control group between

sessions 1 and 2 that then stabilised but with no comparable improvement occurring across

sessions for the experimental group. Again, the experimental group showed an initial drop


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in selective attention capability following their initial deployment into the survival

environment before showing a recovery to a level comparable to the control group by

session 3. This again suggests a delay in functional recovery of attentional capacity within

the survival environment.

These findings can be interpreted within the construct of controlled attention (Engle,

2002; Kane & Engle, 2002; Kane, Bleckley, Conway, & Engle, 2001) which refers to the

capability for memory representations (e.g. action plans, goal states) to be held in a highly

active state in the presence of interference. In this instance, selective attention could

become impaired because, when in the field, the experimental group has difficulty in

maintaining activation of the target representations or in blocking distractor stimuli from

the physical environment from gaining access to working memory.

Attentional switching showed almost identical performance in both groups, irrespective

of whether they were in the field or in the classroom, and both groups showed a slight

improvement in performance across the three sessions. This finding was unexpected and

may be due to the fact that the attentional switching test required ‘intra-dimensional’ set

shifting (up or down moves). Whereas it is known that patients with damage to the

prefrontal cortex, affecting attentional control, can learn to handle intra-dimensional

switching as well as healthy normals, they show significant impairment on

‘extra-dimensional’ switching tasks, for example when the switch is to a completely

new dimension such as switching from shape to colour (Owen, Roberts, Hodges, Summers,

Polkey, & Robbins, 1993; Owen, Roberts, Polkey, Sahakian, & Robbins, 1991).

Auditory-verbal working memory showed no significant difference between the

experimental and the control groups and no significant improvement across sessions.

However, we must be careful about interpreting these results. The control group reached

almost ceiling level on their scores after their first session whilst the experimental group

performed similarly to their first (classroom) session throughout. In fact, the control group

improved significantly between sessions 1 and 2, whilst the experimental group showed no

improvement when first deploying into the field. However, there is the risk here of witch

hunting for an effect that does not exist, and committing a Type I error, or of ignoring a

pattern of performance consistent with the tests of selective and sustained attention,

particularly with the lack of improvement in test performance in the experimental group,

and thus committing a Type II error. We believe that the safest approach with respect to

auditory-verbal working memory is to adopt a ‘not-proven’ verdict. In other words, the

finding is interesting but we cannot draw any strong conclusions at present.

Sustained attention was found to be impaired in the experimental group throughout the

survival phase of the exercise compared with both their own pre-deployment (classroom)

measure and with the performance of the control group across the sessions. The

experimental group showed no recovery in performance to their original baseline measure

within the timescale of the survival exercise.

It has been argued that sustained attention is a critical resource for natural action

behaviour and that a reduced capacity for sustained attention can lead to increased action

errors in both normal individuals and people with traumatic brain injury (Robertson et al.,

1997). Furthermore, a decrease in sustained attention produces a deficit in top–down

control over action selection and consequently the individual’s cognitive system becomes

more vulnerable to capture by bottom-up influences (Schwartz, 2006). The weakening of

control over attention predisposes the cognitive system to environmental intrusions as

seen in the correlation that exists between sustained attention performance and everyday

action slips (Schwartz et al., 1999) and any reduced capacity will lead to the reported


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frequency in everyday action slips occurring in normal individuals (Schwartz et al., 1999).

This reduced capacity could well account for the prevalence of injuries, particularly from

the use of knives, hatchets and other implements commonly observed on survival exercises,

along with difficulties in operating survival equipment. Furthermore, any restriction in

sustained attention would increase the difficulty for survivors in such tasks as maintaining

radio watch or keeping a look out for rescue craft. Unless recovered any impairment in

sustained attention can rapidly develop into major cognitive dysfunction (Sarter, Givens, &

Bruno, 2001) with further insidious consequences for survivors.

Engle (2002) has argued that working memory capacity involves the application of

attention to maintain or suppress information and that an increase in working memory

capacity results from an increase in the ability to control attention and not from a larger

memory store. This increase in working memory capacity also involves a greater ability to

use attention to avoid distraction. So, working memory capacity does not refer directly to

storage or memory per se, but instead refers to ‘. . .the capacity for controlled, sustained

attention in the face of interference or distraction’ (Engle, Kane, & Tuholski, 1999, p .104).

Consequently, the decrement in attentional performance recorded in the experimental

group under field conditions could be due to impairment in controlled attention.

Furthermore, sensory properties in the environment capture attention (Feldman Barrett

et al., 2004) resulting in reduced attentional capacity leading, in turn, to action slips and

other maladaptive behaviours observed in the initial stages of survival incidents and on

survival exercises. Without sufficient resources controlled processing breaks down

resulting in an environmentally induced decrease in attentional control. The recovery

in attentional capacity around the third day in the field is indicative of an increase in

working memory capacity to normal individual levels. This impairment in controlled or

executive attention suggests that the supervisory system may be implicated in cognitive

dysfunction under survival conditions and further research should address the role of the

supervisory system under conditions of environmental duress.

All processing is initiated by the environment and most acts of attention involve both

stimulus-driven and goal-directed influences (Feldman Barrett et al., 2004). It would

appear that the survival environment biases processing away from goal-directed tasks and

towards stimulus-driven acts. Given that survival results from goal-directed behaviour such

biasing could provide one explanation as to why some victims perish in situations where

others survive.

Our findings suggest that environmental duress leads to a temporary restriction in

attentional control that can persist for up to 3 days. Such a restriction in controlled attention

hinders people from interfacing flexibly with their environment in a goal-directed manner.

This makes it more difficult for the individual either to maintain task-relevant information

in an active state in memory, or to suppress unwanted environmentally triggered stimuli

from entering working memory. It is noticeable in this study that sustained and selective

attention, which both involve active suppression of distractors, are more vulnerable to

impairment than either auditory-verbal working memory or attentional switching. This

reflects a diminished working memory capacity resulting in difficulty in preventing

attentional focus from being captured by environmental distractors, and thus being drawn

away from the actively maintained target information (Kane & Engle, 2002). When these

goal states are not actively maintained by working memory then behaviour becomes

disorganised, perseverative or otherwise inappropriate (Kane & Engle, 2002). Certainly,

disorganised and perseverative behaviour can account for the increase in accidental injuries

mentioned above, and inappropriate behaviour has been witnessed in both real survival


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incidents and during survival training exercises. That the survival group showed functional

recovery in attentional processing after approximately 3 days in the field suggests that the

individual is able to increase attentional control over time, although how this is achieved is

not yet clear.

In conclusion, the duress of a survival environment produces impairment in selective and

sustained attention which together suggests dysfunction in controlled attention. This form

of cognitive impairment makes flexible interaction with the survival environment difficult

and the victim’s behaviour becomes dominated by environmental cues at the expense of

wilful, goal-directed survival behaviour. The often witnessed result is of a victim who is

cognitively unable to aid his own survival. This would begin to answer at least one anomaly

that exists in survivorship: why so many people perish when there is no need.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Sqn Ldr Ray Pelcot RAF and the instructors and students of the survival school,

RAF Cranwell, UK for their support in this study.

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DOI: 10.1002/acp

Impairment in attentional processing in a field survival environment

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