Opportunity: Modeling Changes in Attentional Resource Capacity Under Extended Cognitive Demand and Environmental Stress

Combat systems operators simultaneously perform several demanding tactical tasks (e.g., managing communications, making fast-paced calculations and decisions, tracking mission schedules) during long-endurance missions. In an ongoing study, participants complete 40-minute simulated scenarios once per hour across two 6-hour sessions: one with operational acoustic noise exposure and one in a quiet control environment. The intern will help collect and analyze behavioral and neurophysiological data, informing a mathematical framework that maps performance across a 5-task cognitive battery and subjective survey metrics to dynamic, resource-specific latent factors.