Selection tests for visual inspection on a multiple fault type task

Visual inspection : a review of the literature.

“…In general, performance accuracy degrades and search time increases the further an item is located away from the fixation point and into the periphery (Drury & Clement, 1978). As a result, visual lobe size typically provides a good predictor of inspection performance (Gallwey, 1982). That is, inspectors with larger visual lobes tend to detect more defects or require less time for search.…”

“…Subsequent research, however, has shown that tests of intelligence may provide good predictors in some instances. In a simulated inspection task representing inspection of sheets of steel, Gallwey (1982) demonstrated that the attention-concentration subset of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) can be a good predictor of inspector performance, but only if other better predictors such as the Harris Inspection Test (HIT) and the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) (covered in Section 3.3.5) are not used. The attention-concentration subset of the WAIS measures arithmetic, digit span, and digit symbol.…”

“…As Drury and Prabhu (1992) point out; precision, depth, and validity are critical elements of the definition. Inspection processes require a large amount of mental processing, concentration, and information transmission, along with extensive use of both short-term and long-term memory (Gallwey, 1982). For example, short-term memory is required to remember which areas of an item have already been inspected and which have not.…”

“…As just one example, individual differences in inspection tend to be task-specific for the search component of the task, whereas decision tasks tend to show more generalizability (Drury & Wang, 1986). In the end, the very best predictor of inspection task performance is a simplified version of the task itself (Gallwey, 1982).…”

Human factors in aviation maintenance: Phase 1: Progress report.

“…Other evidence (Gallwey, 1982;Drury and Wang, 1986) suggests that selection tests for visual lobe size may well be task-specific, in that the ability to search for defect ( D ) in background ( B ) may be unrelated to the ability to search for a different defect ( D ' ) in a different background ( B' ). As Drury and Gramopadhye (1990) have noted, training appears to be a more powerful intervention strategy than selection for inspection tasks.…”