Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2009
Ships' bridge watchkeeping, although the prime task of the officer of the watch, makes very low task demands in terms of information processing and required speed of response compared to most other vigilance tasks. Consequently, performance of the visual lookout task is difficult to describe and evaluate systematically. Results from an on-board observational study show that lookout lapse periods can be economically described by simple mathematical models, which assist in comparison and evaluation of task performance.